What is the best time of day to train?

 Photo by Maks Styazhkin on Unsplash

There are multiple things to consider when you want to schedule your training. You have to know if you're going to have enough energy in the morning. You. have to know if you're going to be exhausted by the time you get out of work. You have to figure out if you have enough time over lunch to get a decent workout and still go back to the office after.

The simple answer to the question of what is the best time of day to train is, whatever time you can most consistently do so. For example, in my own life, I can be relatively certain that I could get more out of working out after work, before dinner. I would have more energy, wouldn't have to worry about waking people up by getting ready (or even actually training, as I have a home gym) and I will have had a couple of meals throughout the day.

I'm not a morning person. But I recognize that if I tried to work out at my ideal time, I might be able to work out once or twice a month because there would almost always be something else that needs to be done and I wouldn't have time to train. So, I train in the morning. It's not ideal. I don't like getting up that early. I don't like training without having eaten anything (again...don't want to wake everyone up and food prep makes noise that carries through my house like crazy!) 

So, with a stiff body and sleepy eyes, I pull my workout clothes on, head downstairs, close the door to my gym room (to try to limit the amount of noise) and start warming up. After a couple of warm-up sets, I'm starting to wake up and the body is less stiff. I'm feeling better and more awake. I go through my training and, by the time I'm done, others are starting to wake up and I can go on to get myself some breakfast, make some coffee and go on with my day.

That may not be you. I know others who work early in the morning, get home around 3:30pm and train at that time. They have that time of day available every day, consistently. That works for them.  There are others who have the most consistent schedule after dinner. They train a couple hours after dinner, shower and go to bed. 

Whatever the case is for you, it has to be consistent. Consistency is more important than pretty much any other thing for training effectively. It's more important than getting a good night's sleep (though that's really important). It's more important that having a good training program. You can have the best training program in the world, but if you only follow it two or three times a month, you won't make any progress.

Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare. All that tortoise did was, he kept going. He was consistent. In the end, that's how he won the race. Be consistent and make progress every time you train. It doesn't even have to be much. If you increase your deadlift five pounds every week, after a year your deadlift will improve by over 250 pounds! That's a pretty significant improvement.

Get started! Start today. If you don't know what to do first or how to get things going, get ahold of me. I can work with you and we can maximize your time. Nobody wants to spend two hours a day in the gym. In fact, in many places right now, that's not even an option. But that doesn't mean that you can't get stronger. I can help with that.

Let's get moving!