Is There Really a Best Time to Strength Train After 50

What time of day is the most conducive to best results when we're talking strength training? Is there one? You probably heard, or you may have heard, that there's a best time of day to exercise. Even I talk about it. Morning workouts, tough ones, intense ones, may support sleep and circadian rhythm. Later in the day, body temperature is higher and you may feel a little stronger, or your joints Just feel a little more ready for the workout, warmer, you're ready to move. But does training when your body performs best actually result in more strength or muscle? A new 2026 randomized controlled trial put that question to the test in adults 60 to 80 years old. And the answer may simplify your workout schedule considerably, or at least put that worry to rest. In this episode, I break down what the researchers discovered, what this study does, And does not change about the Flipping 50 recommendations and why your sleep, energy, and ability to consistently exercise still matter when choosing your best workout time. You're in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause, and you're not slowing down. You're just getting started, but the old rules don't apply anymore. The workouts that worked before, they're working against you now. The advice you've been given, incomplete at best. I'm Debra Atkinson, and I'm the founder of Flipping 50, the pioneer in fitness for women in midlife. For more than 40 years, I've been in the trenches with women just like you, and for the last 12, right here on this podcast, and, and the founder of Flipping 50: The Stronger Way app and membership. Welcome to Flipping 50 the Stronger Way, where science meets strength, where you'll find the tools, research, and real talk to build the body and the life you want in your second half. Each week, you'll get evidence-based exercise and nutrition strategies, conversations with leading experts, and honest answers to the questions your doctor didn't get answers to in medical school and doesn't have time to answer in an appointment. This is your show. Let's get stronger. Welcome or welcome back, and let's just dive right in. So I want to talk about this study. We will put citations in the show notes if you're a prove-it-to-me girl. I like it too. So here we go. The researchers actually recruited 108 adults ages 60 to 80. Now, adults, obviously, you know, this is both genders, so this is not specifically women only, but at 60, we can guess these women were— those included were post-menopause, and 41% of them. So just a little over, probably about 45, 46-ish. My math is not great on the spot. Before training began, researchers tested each person's strength at 4 different Time periods: 8 AM, 12 noon, 4 PM, and 8 PM. And this wasn't simply asking participants whether they considered themselves morning or evening people. This was identifying when each individual actually demonstrated their highest and lowest strength performance. Participants were randomized into train around their individual peak performance time, train around their lowest performance time, or remain In a non-training control group— nobody wants to be in that group, by the way— for 12 weeks, the exercise groups performed 2 supervised whole-body resistance training sessions, just 2 each week, and plus 1 moderate-intensity cycling session. So picture this again. This is really very much like participating in a Flipping 50 program. So maybe you strength train on your Monday and Thursday, or maybe you split it Monday and Friday, and then you do your cycling on Wednesday. That was their picture. So the question essentially that the study asked, if I identify when you're naturally strongest and you consistently train, then will you gain more strength or lean muscle during that period of time by doing it that way? And the answer— wait for it— Was no training at an individual's peak performance time did not produce meaningful greater improvements in strength or appendicular lean muscle mass, meaning your arms or your legs, and then training at their lowest performance time. So let's say you know I'd rather have you do your intense early and light late. It is still the second tenet of flipping fifty because over years. It's what I've seen. And we know that cortisol levels are high. So it came from science and was steeped in proven training. But here's the other thing. The third piece of that wheel is you and I get it done, if we get it done in the morning, much more likely than if we wait till afternoon because we often are going to get sidetracked, rerouted. Somebody's going to need you at 5:30 PM. It's much more likely than they will need you at 5:30 AM. I think we I think we can all agree on that one. So I'm going to restate what the findings were. Training at your or my peak performance time. So they tested us. They looked at 8 and 12 and 4 and 8. And whichever one of those we were the strongest at, if they let us be in the group where we were the strongest, or if they put us in the group where we were actually the weakest, It didn't matter. It didn't improve and it didn't sabotage our results. So researchers compared morning, noon, afternoon, and evening training. And again, there's no consistent advantage for a particular time of day for the muscle adaptations measured. You really may perform later in the day. And this is where we need some nuance. So years ago, and it's probably been 2 decades now, I first came across this research and started digging into it. At about 4 PM in the day, given your time zone, my time zone, where we are in the world, and that we're adapted to it, our core body temperature tends to go up very slightly. Now, if we took your temperature, are we going to notice that? I don't know about that. But what we do know is it goes up enough for research to prove that at about that time, we're warmer. Now, who might that matter for? Maybe you, if you tend to feel more stiff And you're definitely not a self-declared morning person. That might mean you feel more comfortable. You are more motivated to exercise later in the day because it feels good later in the day and doesn't so much early in the day. Maybe because of that feeling better, feeling smoother or more comfortable to go through full range of movement, you do a little bit better. You do another set. You stay a little bit longer. I think that all has to be a factor. So I'm going I'm going to leave it there for you to decide for yourself. But the new study isn't telling us that physiology doesn't change throughout the day. It does. Long-standing research shows that core body temperature, as I mentioned, follows a circadian rhythm and generally reaches its highest levels late afternoon or early evening. Strength, power, and other measures of physical performance often follow a similar pattern. A systematic review of anaerobic performance, for example, Anaerobic being explosive, fast, rapid kinds of movements, finds that most studies report greater power and capacity in the afternoon, commonly between about 4:00 PM and 7:30 PM. Interestingly enough, don't you think that for, at least for high school athletes, that is the time of day when most of their competition is? That would be the same for junior high or middle school, depending on where you are. Collegiate athletes, a little Less so, but it makes you wonder about some of those all-day sports or track field events where it's a, you know, it's an hours-long event and you wait for your specific event at a certain time of day. Do certain athletes have an advantage because of the order things are done? Who knows the real answer to that question, but it is certainly nuanced. Higher core muscle temperature and changes in muscle contractile properties appear to contribute to All of this, you know, most common power capacity in the late afternoon or early evening. So if you've always felt that lifting at 4 PM feels easier for you than lifting at 6 AM, you're not imagining it. And although hard to separate, it may also be somewhat of a relationship to stress going on here. And I think this could go either way. And depending on who you are and how you think about it matters so much, but— First thing in the morning, you get it done. Maybe that makes you feel resilient, like a warrior for the rest of the day. You got it done, you feel good, and you make good health habit decisions the rest of the day. For others, it may be, no, I need to get right to it. I want to get right to the work. And then at the end of the day, the exercise is always that transition period. So between work and home, there's the exercise to kind of burn off some steam and some adrenaline and to reset. And then help relax. It could go either way. Either way is not right or wrong. But I will capture at the end the point that we make when I recommended— made the 10 tenets of Flipping 50— how relevant that is to what's happening over the decades of helping hundreds and thousands of women go through programs. But coming back to that, your tissues are warmer at about 4 PM. And movement may feel more comfortable because of that, be more fluid. Strength or power may temporarily be better, but acute performance and long-term adaptation are not the same question. This episode of Flipping 50 with Debra Atkinson is brought to you by Alloy Health. Are you dealing with menopause alone? It's not just you. Almost 50% of women wait 3 or more years before seeking relief from menopause symptoms. That's years of hot flashes, awful sleep, brain fog, mood swings, and maybe the inability to comply with the lifestyle habits that you know will help you offset muscle and bone loss. Look, I was lucky. I was going through menopause living in Boulder and Scottsdale, surrounded by functional physicians who were proactive. And then I was shocked to find that for thousands of women in my community, it was nothing like that. So I'm thrilled to share this solution with you that I now use too. Alloy was built by women who dealt with all of it. 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Head to myalloy.com and use code FLIPPING50 to get 20% off your first order. This code is valid on products only. So this new study suggests that consistently training during your personal peak performance window does not necessarily translate into greater strength or muscle gains over time. So in fact, it may be that simply having the discipline or commitment to do it regularly at a time that you will be able to fit it in a schedule that is your real life and mine may be more important. It doesn't change my stance on intense early and light late. And if you know Flipping 50 and the 10 tenets of that Flipping 50 method, number one is restore before more. So many women are already tired and trying to go through and be disciplined and willpower their way through really hard workouts, trying to work on the bone density and the explosiveness for power. That's well and good that you're dedicated and you're aware of the need to exercise in a way that helps longevity. However, if you're already struggling with— and I want to call this the medical term— adrenal insufficiency, HPA axis dysfunction, the lay term adrenal fatigue. You're tired all the time and you really can't figure it out, but you feel not rested. You're unrested when you wake in the morning, no matter how many hours of sleep you had. And I don't mean those of you that are tossing or turning or getting up, not falling asleep. I mean, somebody who actually goes to bed, does sleep, but then is waking and still, no, not rested. That's a need for restore before more. Figuring out why, what's going on. So often we ignore maybe extended periods of cortisol that falls into then the adrenals probably insufficiently putting out cortisol to rise to the occasion, not rising anymore in the morning when it should. And that domino effect may have an impact on your thyroid, which may contribute to the overall fatigue that's going on. The place where this all started was you and I, potentially, if we can hold ourselves accountable to what we learned so very well in pushing through, and we didn't honor our needs. We didn't honor the need for rest regularly at regular intervals. Sunday and Saturday have become days of work and getting more done as opposed to rest days. And life has changed a little. So all of that can contribute. So number 2 of the 10 tenets of Flipping 50 is intense early and light late. And that means— it's a guideline, not a rule. And if what you're doing works for you, keep it. But I bring people back to these easy statements when it's not working. So restore before more. Don't dive in. Don't do that mega boot camp many days, multiple days, and go hard every time. If you're already exhausted. Don't do the high-intensity interval training if you're already exhausted. Now, I say that message so much that one of the persons on my extended team the other day said, oh, I thought you didn't believe in that. I said, no, I don't believe in it if you're already tired. I said, I absolutely believe HIIT is a part of a fantastic part of a week— strength training, HIIT, and the base of walking and foundation every day, jump training. Power training, but it's kind of a tutu and, you know, walk every day. But she's like, oh, I didn't think you liked HIIT. I'm like, yeah, I personally do HIIT like at least 3 times a week. It's interesting that we can have perceptions that aren't necessarily true. So sometimes you may be listening and beating yourself up because you're not doing something or not doing it at the time of day when you think. I hope this puts you at ease that it is okay in terms of you're getting the optimal results, whether you do it in the morning or in the afternoon. As long as you're doing it, your ability to increase your strength or your power, your performance does not actually change based on that. Now, you may have a personal preference and really prefer it, but much of that might be more subjective than it is actually based on performance. I particularly suggest intense early, light late for Women who struggle with energy, sleep, who already know that late intense exercise makes falling asleep or staying asleep harder. Women who simply don't tolerate vigorous exercise later in the day, and I'll tell you where that started. So I wrote about this in You Still Got It, Girl, the book now almost a decade old. This is what's called or referred to often as a pregnenolone steal, and you don't hear much about pregnenolone, but it's kind of the precursor to. Many hormones. So it can take it and divert hormone where it's needed. Progesterone, you of course are very familiar with now. A decade ago, less so. Progesterone we need for sleep. So it helps us in the evening that progesterone ramps up. We calm down, we relax, we're able to get a deeper sleep, able to get to sleep in the first place. But if we don't have progesterone— many women experience this firsthand just by nature— They start to struggle with sleep. If they've been even a good sleeper, will struggle with sleep because progesterone levels decline generally at some point during perimenopause. So what happens late in the day with exercise and how is that relative? Well, it's this: you use, you and I tap into cortisol during our exercise. We use it if we are going to mobilize all the forces so that we can. Do heavy lifting, we can do multiple sets, bring ourselves close to muscle fatigue, or we're going to, for that matter, run sprint intervals on a treadmill or your elliptical or spinning bike. We need to recruit cortisol. Cortisol is what we use for energy. When cortisol rises, release of blood sugar happens. Now our muscles have something to use as fuel. That's all by design. It's supposed to happen. It would happen if we Panicked and we had to run quickly to save our dog and get our dog out of the traffic. I'm thinking about a walk we took this morning. Or you are running to grab a child who is about to fall and, and fall and really get hurt. That surge of cortisol creates the release of sugar that fuels what it is we need to happen. So realize that when early in the day, by nature, cortisol is elevated and then falls throughout the day. This is for people who feel good. So if you're not feeling good, cortisol may not be as high early in the morning, but when it falls over the course of the afternoon, then we would say at about 4 o'clock, if you're trying to work out after work or later in the day, you don't have that natural cortisol high already there and waiting so that you can rev up and use it. Instead, your body will have to make it. It will convert something into cortisol. And what it converts is that pregnenolone into cortisol. So now you can work out and you might say, okay, good, fine. I'm done. I did it. It was great. But the problem really is that you have now written checks from a bank account. And when you need that for progesterone to get to sleep, you don't have it because you've already written checks on that account. And so you're getting an overdraft notice, essentially, and you don't have it where you need it. So late-day exercise is not just revving you up and maybe then you're all wound up and you can't get to sleep. It's not exactly that. So in fact, for some people, they've got muscle tension and really working hard before sleep or a few hours, at least if you allow 2 to 3, some women are okay. It actually helps them to calm down and release if they have no other means of doing it. They They are kind of out of training and can't do that well themselves. It can help. It's not that it revs you up so much, as long as you leave a window, but it's then that you may not have what you need to get to sleep. So your progesterone may suffer in terms of your own body's ability to produce it. So that is the relationship between do heavy early or intense early, later in the day make it light. And yes, you can do light early. That's not harmful at all either. But just to— the alliteration is easy to remember: intensely, lightly. And that is the reason why and how that elevated cortisol when you exercise is not a problem because then either after exercise in the morning or in the evening, it does come back down. The problem is how you got that cortisol. So early in the day, it's already naturally there. And later in the day, it's not there. Your body has to make something. So Just want to clarify that for you and feel free, reach out, DM me if you've got questions, because I know this comes up and it's a little confusing for you. By the way, anybody here, you're exercising late in the day, you don't have any problem getting to sleep or staying asleep right now. I always follow the rule, don't fix it if it's not broken. Just be aware. There may be a moment in time where potentially you'll need to pivot. If you are not yet through perimenopause into postmenopause, your progesterone levels may not have dropped enough to be problematic. Maybe you are already supplementing with progesterone and that is working for you. But whatever it is, you've got more information, just enough to know, if not for yourself, for another woman, a friend, a sister, a daughter, who may need to hear this or know this. So if you're sleeping beautifully, you love your 4 PM strength workout, I'm not going to say don't do that anymore. But if vigorous exercise late in the day leaves you staring at the ceiling at night, especially midnight or 2, your muscle doesn't theoretically have an optimal workout time badly enough for me to sacrifice your sleep. And I would suggest, can we do it earlier in the day? And you're not You're not winning more strength or more power by doing it late afternoon. It's just, is it a personal preference? Is it doing no harm? And do you enjoy it that way? And if so, I would say, carry on, just know. So what about cortisol? Cortisol, of course, naturally follows that strong daily rhythm. It's generally highest in the morning at 8:00 AM and it declines across the day. So it's at its lowest at 2:00 AM. And exercise itself can influence cortisol, also melatonin and body temperature. Research examining exercise timing, circadian rhythm, and sleep suggests that timing and intensity can alter those physiological responses, although the evidence isn't strong enough to prescribe one universal workout time based on cortisol alone. So that's why intense early, light late still remains practical guideline rather than a biological commandment. It's just a suggestion. And most of all, no fixing anything that's not broken. If it's working well, you're getting results, you feel good doing it, you're sleeping really well, carry on. So we're looking at the whole you. How do you sleep? How do you recover? How do you— how's your energy level? When do you have the most energy? Are there any roller coasters? When does exercise feel the best for you? And when will you do it But consistently. So we want to keep that high on the list of priorities because consistently doing it over a lifetime is really what matters. So I would say don't rearrange your life because somebody on social media or because a single study tells you that there's one hormonally perfect hour to lift weights. If you consistently strength train at 7 AM, you feel good doing it, it— this study gives us no compelling reason to move your workout to 4 PM or vice versa. Just Just because your strength might be temporarily, you know, higher at one period. If you feel stiff first thing in the morning and significantly better later in the day, there's also no reason that you need to force early strength training. And if sleep is an issue, protect your sleep. Although I do have really strong feelings about this and the evidence is good, do not change your wake-up time. So Kind of deferring to Michael Breus, America's holistic sleep doctor, the snooze button, the sleeping in, some of the worst things that we've had in human health in a very long time. You wanna keep that wake-up time the same. If you have sleep to make up, you need to catch up, go to bed an earlier, an hour earlier tonight. Maybe. If you do this well, do a power nap. I don't know about you, but I fail at naps. When I take a nap, I feel groggy the rest of the day. And it does not matter if it's a 10-minute, a power 20, or I literally fall asleep. And this happens so rarely that I will lay down in the middle of the day anyway, but, you know, I took a nap on a rare Sunday afternoon this week and the rest of the day I was like, okay, I'm toast. I mean, just, I just want to lay down the rest of the day. So I am not good at napping. And, and it also will potentially disturb my sleep in the evening because I don't fully wake up and all I want to do is go to bed. But that kind of changes bedtime and awake time and the total time in bed. So if you nap well, carry on, do it. But same wake time every day is probably one of the best things you can do for your health. Intense early, lighter late guideline can be useful if you need to protect your sleep. And just as a rule, you may find that if you do intense work earlier in the day, you will do more spontaneous exercise and movement throughout the rest of the day. Give it a test and/or just reflect on that and share your answer with me. Your best training time needs to account for more than the performance of one single workout. It really needs to support the adaptations that you're trying to create and your ability to recover from them for a lifetime. There you have it. We have the references, so the citations will be here for you in the show notes. And if you're looking for a next step, touch down on show notes on the website and you can see some of the things that may be going on right now that you too can get in on. What are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 today. The information shared on Flipping 50 the Stronger Way is for educational and informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare care provider before beginning any exercise program, making changes to your diet, or adjusting any medications or supplements. Individual results may vary. Debra Atkinson and Flipping 50 are not responsible for any injury or adverse outcomes resulting from information presented on this podcast.