The gym experience isn’t the same at all hours of the day. Going in the morning compared to the evening can be a vastly different in many ways; energy levels, amount of people, whether you’re going to work later or not, etc. Because of this, picking the best time to go to the gym is more than picking whenever you’re free for an hour.
The best time of day to workout is the time you can show up the most consistently. Even if research says 1am is the worst time; if that’s the only time where you can come in 3 times a week every week for years, 1am is the best time for you. You should also weigh out important factors like how busy it gets, your own work schedule, and how it may effect your sleep. There are general advantages and disadvantages to different times of day that can influence your decision.
Why consistency matters
A perfect workout routine done inconsistently is far worse than a terrible routine done consistently.
This essentially means that no matter what you’re doing in the gym, consistency is the most important factor. This is because working out for any goal – weight loss, strength gains, more energy, etc. – takes a very long time while using the most effect “dose” of exercise each week. This dose depends on the goal, but for most people, it can be as simple as coming to the gym three times a week.
This phenomenon is similar to taking actual medication to treat a problem or disease. You can take aspirin inconsistently because the effects are immediate – you have a headache, you take the pill, and now you don’t. However, if you have high blood pressure, you need to take the same medicine each week at the same frequency and dosage prescribed by your doctor. Although it can take years of taking these medicines to get to a healthy blood pressure, the only way to get healthy is to take the medicine consistently. Those who take the medicine, but inconsistently, will make no progress since their not following their prescribed treatment.
The same can be said with fitness. Everyone has their own fitness “prescription” that requires exercising a specific amount of times every week. This prescription depends on your goal, your history, your current lifestyle, and many other important factors. However, the heart of every single prescription is consistently. No workout routine will ever work if it’s not consistent
Factors That Affect Workout Timing
HOW BUSY THE GYM IS
Most people hate working out when it’s crowded, so they’ll understandable shoot for the least busy times when they can. The easiest way to tell how busy a gym gets throughout the day is to search your local gym on Google Maps, then use their “Popular Times” feature to see the usual gym traffic at different hours. Below is an example of what Google Maps will show.
The exact gym traffic depends on the gym itself, the location, day of the week, etc. Below is a table summarizing these times in different ranges.
| 9AM – 1PM | Busy |
| 1PM – 4PM | Not very busy |
| 4PM – 9PM | Extremely busy |
| 9PM – 11PM | Not very busy |
| 11PM – 6AM | Almost empty |
| 6AM – 9AM | Not very busy |
Coming to the gym when it’s not very busy or almost empty is ideal because it guarantees that you can do your workout exactly as planned. When it’s busy, you often have to wait for equipment or change your workout entirely due to lack of space. The problem with these quiet times though is the hours. 11PM to 6AM is almost empty because 90% of people should be sleeping at that time. This comes to a very common mistake people make with their fitness routine – sacrificing too much sleep for their workouts.
Sleep
While some people would benefit from waking up earlier to workout, you also need to go to sleep earlier to make up the difference. There are different opinions and research articles online, but the consensus is this: you need 8 hours of sleep every night for optimal health. In fact, it’s very possible that lack of sleep can be preventing you from losing weight or building muscle, even if your lack of sleep let’s you work out more often.
The most optimal time your body can recover from a workout is while you sleep. This is where a lot of the muscle building, tissue repairing, and calorie burning takes place. Remember, the workout itself is not what makes you stronger or lose weight, it’s the recovery from that workout. Lacking sleep will therefore prevent the body from fully recovering, making the workout not nearly as effective as it should have been.
The best way to prevent lack of workout recovery is to simply go to sleep earlier if you plan on waking up early for a workout, or waking up later if you plan to stay up later for a workout.
Work Schedules
Set Schedules
If you have a job with a set schedule, the best times to work out is either directly before or after you shift. Pairing your workout routine with habits you’ve already created makes the workout routine much easier to stick to long term. In this case, since you’re already use to waking up at a certain time, getting ready for work, then driving to the worksite, you’ve already built a “work ritual” that has become automatic. By keeping the same ritual – except maybe waking up and hour earlier and packing a separate gym bag – going to the gym before work will not make a huge difference to your day to day routine.
The same can be said about working out after your shift, but people are more likely to skip the gym on their way home because they’re “too tired.” Although we’ve all had long days at work, this often becomes such a go-to excuse that people end up not going to the gym for weeks on end. Instead, exercising before work when you’re already full of energy is much more likely to make you consistent. Of course, this depends on the person, so if exercising after work makes you consistent, then it’s the best time for you.
Different schedule each week
Those who’s schedule changes week by week don’t get the same ritualistic benefit as a 9-5 worker, but they can use a similar approach. They can make it so no matter what time they come in for work, they have to leave the house 1-2 hours earlier to workout first. Another option would be to set a specific time each day to workout regardless of your schedule. If, for example, you know you’re never scheduled before 8AM, you can make 6AM your workout time no matter where you’re scheduled for the week. The latter approach may be more beneficial since people who workout at different times day-by-day are less likely to be consistent in the long-run.
The Pros and Cons of Different Times
At this point, it should be clear that they best time for you is whatever you can maintain consistently. However, if you have more flexibility day-by-day, it can help to see what research and anecdote say about different times of day.
Morning Workouts
Pro: Most mental energy and most likely to be consistent
Con: Lowest workout output
As you can see, “burn more bodyfat” is not mentioned. It’s been a common myth that exercising on an empty stomach forces your body not to use food calories. This is not true because burning bodyfat completely depends on your daily calorie intake and expenditure. You cannot use workout or nutrient timing to “burn fat instead of storing it,” unless it affect how many calories you eat every day.
Despite not having a fat burning advantage, morning workouts have been shown to be the easiest to stay consistent with long-term. It’s also the time with the highest mental energy, meaning your brain isn’t bogged down from daily activities like work, errands, family, etc.
Lastly, the major con of morning workouts is workout output. Most people won’t have as much strength, endurance, etc., in the morning as they do later in the day. Although consistency trumps this, those looking for performance or athletics goals may want to consider later times.
Noon and Afternoon
Pro: Highest physical strength/energy
Con: Hardest to balance with work and life
This is actually the time where most athletes will perform their workouts, especially when it involves strength training. This is because noon and afternoon hit the perfect balance of being early enough so the day doesn’t wear you down as well as late enough to get some food and movement in before the workout. Although food does not become useable energy until 12 hours after it’s eaten, a pre-workout meal helps maintain blood sugar levels, which is vital for maintaining workout performance. Also, people have anecdotally reported that working out on a full stomach helps them lift more weight.
The major con here is that most people cannot balance this with work and life. A majority of people are working during this time and rarely have enough of a lunch break to get a workout in. This is part of why athletes are usually the only ones exercising at this time; their workout is their job.
Evening and Night
Pro: May enhance sleep
Con: Busiest time of the gym
Evening and night workouts have the biggest impact on sleep – for better or for worse depending on the person. Many studies say that exercising immediately before bed has zero effect on sleep, and may actually enhance it. However, many have also reported putting as much as a 1-3 hour gap between sleep and the workout can negatively effect sleep. In the end, it comes down to the individual.
Pay attention to how you feel waking up on days where did workout the night before versus when you didn’t. If they feel the same, or if working out the night before makes you feel better, then continue with your workout routine. If you feel you have more energy or mental clarity when you don’t exercise the night before, you’ll have to adjust your routine. Either push the workout an hour or two earlier, or choose a different time of day entirely.
The obvious con here is that it’s the busiest time in the gym. You may have to modify your workouts every day depending on what’s available. If you follow a structured workout program, this may be a deal breaker. If you’re fine with some variations though, this may be something you can work around.