Day versus night workout. Here we go again! Now when I previously addressed this,
the consensus was that the time of your training probably doesn’t matter,
or at least it is very low in the totem pole of importance in your training.
But, does a new study change the course of all of this?
In other words, should we actually pay stronger attention to the time we
decide to do curls in the squat rack? In this video, we’re going to break
down this new study and find out if the results are meaningful enough to warrant
any changes to our wonderful workout plans. Hello, I’m PictureFit, I make videos covering
all things health and fitness, and sometimes just random stuff, with the hopes that
this channel can help you with your goals. And I also like the amazing show Mr. Robot.
Rami Malek was robbed and should have gotten an Emmy for each of the show’s four seasons.
Now if you watched the content of this channel enough, you would know that a
single lone study shouldn’t heavily dictate our training or nutrition decisions. We should
instead consider it for what it is: one or a set of data points that show specific outcomes,
and if intriguing enough, we can employ it ourselves all the while understanding
that it might or might not make a difference. So with that disclaimer, we’ll go ahead and dive
into the details of this new study that looks into the different outcomes between training in
the morning, specifically between 6 and 8 AM, or training in the evening between 6:30 and 8:30PM.
The researchers used a multi-component exercise approach, consisting of resistance training,
your good ol weight lifting, interval sprints, stretching
like Yoga and Pilates, and endurance exercises. The components were performed on separate days,
which means four exercise sessions per week over the course of 12 weeks.
So many aspects of training were covered. Strangely enough,
those squat rack curls were missing. There were a total of 56 participants
for this study, which were first separated into two sex-based cohorts, one with 30 females, and
the other with 26 males. These cohorts were then randomly assigned to one of two time intervention
groups. (15/15 for women, 14AM/12PM for men) Multiple markers of health and fitness were
assessed, which we’ll go in-depth in the results. Overall, that’s exercising 4 times a week
for 12 weeks, both men and women are included in the trials, and the focus
will be on the time of the day of training. Oh, and one more thing, a big one at that,
is that the participants consumed similar dietary intakes throughout the course of the study. So,
the chances of the diet influencing the results would be fairly low,
putting more emphasis on the time of training to be the likeliest cause of the results.
Speaking of results, how about we check them out now!
First, let’s break down the results into three categories:
Improvements on health, improvements on body composition, and improvements on performance.
Let’s start with the women first. For health, the participants that
exercised in the morning saw better improvements in measurements of blood pressure compared
to participants exercising in the evening For body composition, they also experienced
greater total and abdominal fat loss. For performance, they experienced greater
improvements in lower body muscle power measured through squat jumps.
For the women training in the evening, they saw greater improvements in mood
scores as well as satiety, or the feeling of fullness and satisfaction after eating a meal.
For body composition, training at night didn’t have an upper hand to training in the morning.
For performance, the evening group had notably more improvements, specifically in upper body
muscle strength, upper body muscle power, and even upper body muscle endurance. (pushups)
Using the same breakdown for men, we see that training in the morning
actually had… zero physiological advantage compared to training in the evening.
For evening training, in terms of health, there were greater reductions in systolic blood pressure
and feelings of fatigue. For body composition and slightly for performance, they had an advantage in
fat oxidation. For direct performance, training in the evening had no clear advantage.
Now, knowing all of this, it’s important to remember, though, that one group having an
advantage does not mean that the other group did not improve as well. It simply means that one
group performed better in certain categories. It’s also important to recognize that both
exercise times had similar improvements for the large sum of the factors measured.
For women, both groups saw similar improvements in cholesterol, leg strength,
sit-ups, flexibility, aerobic endurance (5k time trial), body fat percentage, and fat-free mass.
For men, both improved similarly in heart rate, upper body strength, upper body power, push-ups,
leg strength, leg power, sit-ups, flexibility, aerobic endurance, body fat percentage,
fat mass, and fat-free mass, and mood scores. That’s quite a lot of similarities!
So, the key point of the findings is that, although a good majority of factors measured did
not differ between AM and PM training, there were indeed some standouts worth considering if they
are important factors for you and your goals. Especially for women, there are many more
differences between morning and evening training. Ultimately, the answer to should we be paying
greater attention to the specific time we train is mostly it depends, specifically on whether
the advantages are worth it to you. Overall though, the answer is closer to not really.
It can be quite an inconvenience to adjust your whole training schedule for these advantages,
especially if your schedule is already well-established.
So even if this study moves the needle slightly for the importance of the time of training,
it still does not surpass the bigger factors, and that’s choosing a time
that you can actually stick to and choosing a time you personally perform your best.
If these two factors aren’t met, then the timing advantages would mean
pretty much nothing. Consistency should be
your ultimate goal, much like the Emmy’s consistency on cheating Rami Malek.
If you enjoyed this video, please make sure to give it a timely thumbs up and share it with your
consistently loving friends. Subscribe for more!
As always, thank you for watching and don’t forget to get your morning and/or evening PROTEIN.