TIME TO EXERCISE

When you work out matters! Here's how to schedule your workouts to hack your body's sleep-wake cycle, so you feel more refreshed the next day

- Sarah Sellens

It's a long-held debate: does when you exercise make a difference to your workout results? And the answer seems to be that it might. One study published in the Journal of Physiology, for example, reports that exercising at 7am may shift your body clock earlier, meaning you'll feel more alert in the morning and get tired earlier in the evening, so you're ready to take on the next sweat session with vim and vigour! Further data shows that doing high-intensity exercise in the evening could hinder sleep.

But if you're not much of a morning person, there is science to support the theory that your body may perform at its peak between 2pm and 6pm, when body temperature is at its highest. A late afternoon workout might also decrease your risk of injury, when joints and ligaments have warmed up from the day.

Clearly, the time of day to exercise may depend on the type of activity you're doing. And there's a caveat: working out at any time is likely to be better than not moving at all. It is often said that the best time of day to work out is, quite simply, whenever you can,' agrees Dean Hodgkin, personal trainer and head of programming at global fitness and wellness community app, TRUCONNECT (truconnect.fit). 'Although this is unequivocally true, there's an additional dimension to consider that could hold the key to whether you achieve your fitness goals or not - there's a link between what type of workout you do and when you do it that could lead to optimal gains.' Follow Hodgkin's tips to maximise your workout performance, whatever the time of day.

EARLY MORNING 
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