Studies suggest that women should exercise in the morning and men at night:

For women, it may be better to exercise in the morning if they want to burn fat, while men benefit more from exercise in the evening.

According to a small study, a morning fitness session is best for women who want to reduce fat and shrink their bellies.

They also see a greater drop in blood pressure from exercise earlier in the day.

But men’s blood pressure, “bad” cholesterol levels, and fat-burning abilities seem to benefit the most from evening exercise.

Men may also feel less tired when they exercise before dinner rather than breakfast.

The results came from a study of 27 women and 20 men who trained four times a week. About half did this between 6:00 and 8:00, the rest between 18:30 and 20:30.

Dr. Paul Arciero, who led the study at Skidmore College in New York, said, “While exercising in the morning and evening offers significant health and performance benefits for women, those who want to melt belly fat and lower blood pressure should be considered in the morning.”

A study of relatively fit people aged 25 to 55 found that women who exercised in the morning lost an average of 10% of the fat around their waist. This was compared to just 3% of belly fat lost in women who exercised at night.

While women generally haven’t lost weight, they have lost belly fat, which can wrap around the body’s internal organs and is bad for your health.

Women who exercised in the morning had a greater drop in blood pressure than those who exercised later. This is thought to be due to the reduction in stiffness in their arteries, but may have been due to morning athletes who initially had slightly higher blood pressure.

The consolation for night owls that studies have shown they have a hard time training before starting work is that women who exercise afterwards have increased upper-body strength and power when asked to lift weights. The men showed no difference in physical performance depending on whether it was at the beginning or end of the day.

However, they were significantly less tired when they exercised at night, had low blood pressure, and their breath analysis showed they burned more fat. While men who exercise at night don’t have less body fat, the study’s authors suggest this may happen over a longer period of time.

Men’s blood pressure, “bad” cholesterol levels, and fat-burning abilities seem to benefit the most from evening exercise, study suggests (archive photo)

All men and women studied were asked to perform four exercise sessions per week for 12 weeks. These include a resistance training session, a stretching session like yoga or pilates, and a sprint training session that involves doing an exercise like swimming or running on a treadmill for 35 minutes. Most sessions lasted an hour, but longer aerobic exercises such as cycling or rowing were included to test endurance.

All people in the study were given a fixed diet for 12 weeks so that food consumption did not affect the results.

Exercise is known to affect the sexes differently, especially when it comes to fat.

Female hormones and counter-circadian rhythms may also play a role.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, found that overall, exercise was beneficial for everyone involved in the study, regardless of when they did it.

The researchers suggest that their results show that women should exercise in the morning to lose fat, but should exercise in the evening if they want to increase muscle strength.