LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Do you get up an hour earlier in the morning to go for a jog? Or are you going to do a few dozen laps in the pool after work? Exercising before or after work has its advantages, but of course also its disadvantages.
We all know them: the early risers who have already gone jogging for an hour before work. They come whistling into the office, and can’t be silent about how good such a morning session is.
But not everyone gets out of bed on time in the morning. And that’s not a bad thing either. Because exercising in the evening – after working hours – has just as many advantages and disadvantages as a workout in the early hours.
The benefits of a morning workout
- You have more energy. If you have a stressful job, both physically and mentally, you probably don’t feel like going to the gym in the evening. If you go jogging or swimming in the morning, you have not yet used any energy and you will enjoy a solid workout twice as much.
- Want to lose a few pounds? Then it is best to exercise before work, because you burn the most fat in the morning. Your body always attacks the sugars first, then the fat. But since you haven’t eaten a lot of sugars in the morning, the body can immediately tackle the fat during a morning workout.
- You get a psychological boost. Exercising in the morning clears the mind and gives you positive energy so you can fly in it all day long.
The disadvantage of a morning workout
- You are more likely to get injured. At night, your spinal discs swell with water, making them fluffier and more flexible. The risk of a hernia is therefore greater! Especially if you do exercises that are taxing on the back, such as squats or rowing movements. A good warm-up is therefore really necessary. It takes about an hour for the vertebral discs to recover from the night. So you better get up extra early.
The benefits of an evening workout
- You are better prepared for a solid workout if you don’t start your training too late. Your nervous system is still active and you have more nutrition than in the morning. This ensures that you can exercise longer and more intensively than in the morning, so that you also burn more calories during and after the session.
- Those longer and more intensive workouts also have physical and social benefits. You are not in a hurry, so it is better to warm up and include just a little more rest time. You also have more time to unload and you can have a quick chat with the other runners in the forest, or the late swimmers in the pool.
- Do you prefer explosive strength exercises? Then it is best to do that in the evening. It takes a while for your body to fully get going after a good night’s sleep, so in the evening you will also see results faster .
The disadvantage of an evening training
- It can seriously disrupt your sleep. During exercise you make cortisol, a substance that increases your blood pressure and alertness. That can have a negative effect on your sleep. When you exercise at night, your cortisol level skyrockets, which is exactly when it should drop. If you are a bad sleeper, an evening workout is not such a good idea.
