It’d be great to be like those other people — getting up at 5 a.m. for Pilates workouts and feeling energized and metabolically charged all day. But you have a job, kids and grocery lists. Is morning really the only time to exercise?
Of course not. Working out — whenever it feels right and fits your schedule is always good. However, a number of experts do see some advantages to starting your day at the gym … even if you’d rather be on a mattress than a mat that time of morning. Self magazine recently broke down the pros and cons of morning versus afternoon workouts.
Advantages of afternoon sessions stem from the fact that you’re already more active then. Your body temperature is warmer (it usually peaks between 2 and 4 p.m.), which means your muscles are more pliable. And that makes you less susceptible to injury. On the other hand, working out later in the day can get you too pumped up to sleep well. And if your schedule goes crazy and you’re running behind, exercise is too often the first thing you cross of your day’s to-do list.
That doesn’t happen with morning workouts, though.
“I’m a believer in morning exercise because you get it done,” Santa Monica, Calif., exercise physiologist Amy Dixon says in the Self article. And you give that metabolism a jump-start, which keeps your system burning more calories all day. But that gets us back to the first problem: Getting up early … with cold, stiff muscles. On days when the bed seems to plead with you to come back and get warm.
We know, we know — but we’re talking about your life here. And once you get into a routine, it gets lots easier.
Contact us — maybe you can grab some coffee on the way.
