Exercise has a host of serious health benefits, not to mention the positive effects it can also have on mood, body image, and self-esteem.  So getting into the gym and training in any capacity is a great achievement in itself. But what about your personal exercise routine? Do you train in the morning or at night, and what are the possible benefits associated with each?

Let us examine the difference…

Morning Workouts

Morning workouts are a fantastic way to start the day.

Training in the morning is a really good way to provide stability to your exercise regime. By waking up early and making it an important part of your day, morning workouts can become an integral part of your weekly routine. By making training a part of your routine, it becomes habitual. This in turn makes it easier to get to your training sessions (and train hard), while making it more difficult to skip sessions. Additionally, it is very rare to have morning plans that could interrupt, or cause you to miss, a scheduled session. Whereas in the evening, there is a greater risk of an event or function effecting your training schedule.

Often early in the morning the gym is dead quiet. This means that you don’t have to wait for machines or pieces of equipment, and as such you can seriously maximize your time spent in the gym. This can cause greater results from your training!

Working out in the morning also starts the day on a positive note. By starting the day with a healthy choice, you are more likely to make health conscious decisions throughout the day. This could potentially lead to eating healthier meals during the day, which can cause increased weight loss and improve health in general.

So training in the morning is obviously the best right?

Well, maybe not.

Night Workouts

Training at night has some large positives as well.

During the day we eat periodically, which provides us with energy for day to day activities. By scheduling your workout at the end of the day, you are going to have a huge amount of energy readily available to fuel your workout. This means that you will be able to exercise at a high intensity for the duration of your exercise session, which can lead to greater results.

Training at the end of your day is an awesome way to reduce stress accumulated from the hours spent at work. Often people leave work irritated and unhappy. By training at night you provide yourself with an opportunity to release this stress, which can leave you in a better mood for your home life.

Training at night can leave you physically exhausted. This is a good thing – as it can increase sleep quality and duration significantly. Training at night can cause better sleep, which aids recovery and has a host of additional health benefits including improved weight loss, increased mental clarity throughout the day, and reduced levels of blood sugar and cholesterol.

So, which is best? Obviously the choice is yours and there are a number of benefits to training both in the morning and at night, but in the end it comes down to personal preference and availability. If you can only train in the mornings because you work late, then it’s obviously going to be best to train in the mornings. Similarly, if you feel sluggish and tired in the morning, but feel awesome training at night, then night workouts are going to be the most beneficial. The main thing is that you get in and TRAIN!