Hormone and circadian rhythm are the main research objects of this paper. The researchers sampled the melatonin and catecholamine levels of track and field athletes. These hormones are very important for human daily physiological rhythm. Melatonin is the main hormone that controls the sleep cycle. Will make you sleepy at night and wake up in the morning. Chronic melatonin deficiency is very harmful to health, so we must ensure a good sleep.
Just as melatonin is important for sleep patterns, it can also change your body temperature, alertness and excitability. You don't want high levels of melatonin when you exercise. However, this situation is inevitable for many exercisers who get up early to exercise. To this end, researchers have also done some research on adrenaline, which has the opposite effect to melatonin.
The researchers found that the concentration of melatonin in the morning does have a negative impact on the sports performance of many people, but these effects will be balanced by adrenaline. That is to say, although a high level of melatonin will affect the exercise performance in the morning, the adrenaline level in the morning is higher. As long as the adrenaline level is high, strength and energy will not be affected.
For morning training, the researchers suggest that athletes should pay more attention to maintaining a positive atmosphere during training, which will make our energy level enough to stimulate adrenaline and keep our strength level at a relatively high level.
However, the function of adrenaline can't guarantee the rapidity and accuracy of people, so it's best not to do training that requires fast movements and compound movements in the morning, such as weightlifting or rope ladder training. In the research mentioned above, the speed of foot movement shows that athletes are slower in the morning and have a higher chance of making mistakes. However, the researchers also said that these negative effects will end after 9 o'clock, so it is more appropriate to exercise in the morning, and our training methods should be simpler, such as some morning running and yoga.
References:
1. William Kramer et al. Al. "The increase of adrenaline before exercise may offset the concentration of melatonin in the morning to maintain the maximum muscle strength and power of track and field athletes," Journal of Strength and Regulation Research, doi:10.1519/JSC. 20000.000000660005