Is it better to exercise in the morning or in the evening?
Research shows that evening exercise is slightly more favourable for blood pressure and blood sugar, while morning exercise shifts your sleep rhythm to an earlier time. The timing you can stick to consistently matters more than whichever time is theoretically optimal.
No single time of day comes out ahead on every measure. Of 35 studies that compared morning and evening exercise, 11 found an advantage for the morning, 12 found an advantage for the evening, and 12 found no difference. That said, there are specific outcomes where timing does matter.
Evening exercise has the strongest support when it comes to blood pressure and blood sugar. Many studies combined show that people who trained in the evening achieved a greater drop in blood pressure than morning exercisers, with similar differences for blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes or excess weight. After a single session, timing makes no difference: the effect only becomes visible after weeks of training. In a 12-week study in men, evening exercise also produced greater improvements in blood flow speed and artery flexibility.
Morning exercise, on the other hand, has an advantage if you want to shift your sleep-wake rhythm to an earlier time. Twelve weeks of morning exercise noticeably moved forward the body's release of melatonin. For people who naturally fall asleep too late, that can be useful. Evening exercise may actually help with sleep problems, but could have an unfavourable effect for people who already tend to wake up early.
For body weight, BMI, LDL cholesterol and daily calorie intake, timing makes no demonstrable difference. For fat reduction, one study found that morning exercise produced an effect after just four weeks, while the evening group needed more time. Total cholesterol and triglycerides fell only in the morning group in that study. One note: if you have an elevated risk of heart problems, it is worth knowing that blood pressure and the strain on the heart are naturally higher in the morning. In that case, it is worth discussing the timing of your exercise with your doctor.
This answer is based on several summaries covering dozens of studies, along with a handful of studies in which participants were randomly assigned to a time slot. The researchers themselves rated the quality of the available evidence as "very low" for the overall conclusions. Participants are predominantly men; women are heavily underrepresented. A further caveat: the studies comparing morning and evening exercise differed so greatly from one another in design, duration and measurement that combining their results is difficult. This also explains why one summary finds a timing effect while another does not.
Is it better to take an ice bath before or after your workout?
The answer depends on your training goal: for fast recovery after intense sport or competitions, an ice bath after training is worthwhile, but those who want to structurally get stronger or build more muscle are better off scheduling the ice bath at times when they are not training.
Can intense exercise actually make you age faster?
Regular, well-paced exercise keeps cells measurably younger, as seen in longer telomeres and less DNA damage. How you structure your training determines whether you reap that benefit.
Can you exercise too much?
Yes, exercising too much can lead to sustained loss of performance, mood problems and physical harm. The most concrete signal is a drop in performance that does not recover after more than four weeks of rest.
Is the sauna after exercise good for your recovery?
Taking the sauna regularly after exercise probably adds some extra benefit for fitness and blood pressure, on top of the gains from exercise itself. The sauna after sport is not harmful.
Are short bursts of movement better than one long walk?
For fitness and day-to-day blood sugar control it makes little difference whether you exercise in spread-out bouts or in one continuous session; for the post-meal blood sugar peak, spread-out movement appears slightly more effective. Choose the approach you can most easily sustain.
Does exercise really help with low mood and anxiety?
Exercise demonstrably helps with low mood and anxiety, with walking, jogging and yoga as the best-studied forms. The evidence is promising, though it is not equally strong in every case.