Best time to workout?

Work in IB - hours are 8-12/1on average.

Struggle to wake up at 6 to go workout, but working out in the evening (8/9) seems to disrupt my sleep and fatigue me considerably the following day. Any recommendations?

8am to 8:30pm is very busy on the desk so would need to be sometime before or after

3 Comments
 

Given your limited amount of time, I'd say plan to wake up at the same time everyday, take a good pre and workout at home. Maybe hit up the gym on the weekends when you have more time. If you don't sleep enough after workouts, you have accomplished nothing. Optimize your time.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
Most Helpful

My preference is a shorter workout every morning to keep the routine.

I think a lot of people overestimate the amount of time they need to spend in the gym to see progress and underestimate how much diet/sleep/stress impacts progress. While everyone is different, working long and stressful days, shorter sleep, plus an hour in the gym 4-5 times a week is potentially too much stress on the body to make progress and easy to burn out on. 

For me, 20-30 minutes every morning 5-6 times a week works best for me to stay compliant and make a lot of progress (plus walking and other active hobbies). I have also found 2x a week full body lifts (usually 60-75 minutes) plus "trigger sessions" (10 minutes of band work to get a pump on the off days) is also a great way to put on muscle without getting burnt out. If you don't like waking up early, I would do a big full-body lift on Sat/Sun and another one sometime during the week. Then, get some bands and hit a couple body parts the other days for 10 minutes at some point in the day. 

Compliance and consistency beats anything else. Find something that works for you that you can make a habit. 

 

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