Sorry night owls, but a new study has uncovered that if you want a bit more from your workouts, it pays to be an earlier riser.
The study, published February 13 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), gives us a better understanding of how the time we exercise at impacts our metabolism at a specific tissue level.
And as it turns out, according to the research, you burn more fat in the morning. The earlier you exercise, the higher the expression of genes involved in breaking down fat – which, voila, results in a higher metabolic rate.
“Our results suggest that late morning exercise could be more effective than late evening exercise in terms of boosting the metabolism and the burning of fat, and if this is the case, they could prove of value to people who are overweight,” said Professor Juleen Zierath, of the Karolinska Institute.
Before you rush to set your alarm, it’s worth mentioning that the study was carried out on mice – but researchers found that the animals burnt more fat when exercising at an ‘early active phase’ in their daily cycle.
”The right timing seems to be important to the body’s energy balance and to improving the health benefits of exercise, but more studies are needed to draw any reliable conclusions about the relevance of our findings to humans,” said Prof Zierath.