In my 30+ years in health and wellness, I have gotten many questions. Some crazy, some not.

Them, “Dave, what’s better, the treadmill or the stepper?”

Me, “What do you currently use?”

Them, “Nothing.”

Me with a confused look, “Well, it doesn’t matter. Do something.”

Another question I have been asked is, “Is it better to work out in the morning or later in the day?”

Again, if you are doing neither, it does not matter. Working out any time of the day is better than nothing.

However, suppose you are working out very diligently. In that case, there may be some slight benefit to exercising in the morning versus working out in the afternoon when it comes to certain health outcomes.

In the November 2023 edition of The Journal of Physiology, Morlales-Palermo et al. published a randomized control trial that compared morning and afternoon aerobic exercise and its effects on reducing metabolic syndrome.

According to the NIH, metabolic syndrome is a group of conditions that, when taken together, can increase a person’s risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other health problems. Another name for this condition is insulin resistance syndrome.

Characteristics of metabolic syndrome include abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high blood triglycerides, and low HDL (high-density lipoprotein). Some research suggests that as many as 1 in 3 people have metabolic syndrome in the United States.

Current research strongly suggests that a supervised exercise program would have a positive effect on metabolic syndrome and general health, but the researchers aimed to find out if the time of day of the exercise would have any substantial impact on results. The study was made up of 139 people who were randomly placed into one of three groups — morning exercisers, afternoon exercisers, and a control. For the two exercise groups, the program was organized into 48 supervised, high-intensity aerobic interval sessions over the course of 16 weeks. Body composition, cardiovascular fitness (via VO2 Max), fat oxidation, blood pressure, and blood metabolites were compared pre- and post-study. The researchers found that both exercise groups improved similarly when compared to the control group in body composition, waist circumference, and diastolic blood pressure (bottom number), and VO2 Max. What was interesting about the findings was that researchers noticed that the morning exercise group showed improved results in systolic blood pressure (top number), plasma fasting insulin concentration, and insulin resistance.

Overall, the study showed that morning exercise may be somewhat more efficient at reducing metabolic risk factors such as insulin sensitivity and systolic blood pressure. The bottom line is that exercising, regardless of the time of day, improves overall health and wellness and can reduce the incidence of serious diseases such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Exercising in the morning may be slightly more effective for people working to gain every possible health advantage or who suffer from health issues such as metabolic syndrome.