Exercise, morning or evening?

By Yoon Ja-young

As temperatures soar in the afternoon, people planning to lose weight should choose whether it’s better to exercise in the morning or evening.

According to Dr. Seo Il-beom at Grand Plastic Surgery, morning exercise might be better for losing weight. “If you exercise in the morning, you feel fresh thanks to the secretion of Adrenalin. If you exercise on an empty stomach, your body burns fat more quickly,” said the doctor.

However, he points out that too much exercise in the morning can be harmful because the flexibility of muscles or joints reduces in the morning. One’s ability to exercise is also hampered because the enzyme involved in energy metabolism is less activated.

The doctor therefore recommends taking enough warm-up exercise — over 10 minutes — to ease the tension in muscles by raising the body temperature and to ease the movement of the joints as well because increasing the blood flow helps the body to adjust to exercising.

Exercise in the evening, however, is also effective and helps boost the immune system. The doctor said that this has to do with adrenal cortical hormones and thyroid stimulating hormones, which rapidly increase when one exercises around 7 p.m. These hormones boost metabolism and enhance the alertness of the body, making exercise more effective.

Exercise in the evening is also better for people with high blood pressure because blood pressure tends to go down in the evening. “When you sleep after evening exercise, the brain accelerates secretion of melatonin and growth hormones. The evening exercise thus helps teenagers grow taller and boosts immunity and delays the aging of adults,” he said.

“Morning exercise and evening exercise each have merits and demerits and differ in efficiency. Choose a time of the day when you can dedicate more than 30 minutes to exercise and when you feel in better condition,” the doctor said.