• Posted March 20, 2026

'Early Bird' Exercisers Get The Most Health Benefits, Study Finds

“Early bird” exercise provides better health benefits for people, a new study says.

People who regularly exercise in the early morning are significantly less likely to develop clogged arteries, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes or obesity, researchers are slated to report at the upcoming meeting in New Orleans of the American College of Cardiology (ACC).

For example, exercising between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. was associated with the lowest odds of heart disease from clogged arteries.

“Any exercise is going to be better than no exercise, but we tried to identify an additional dimension relating to the timing of exercise,” lead researcher Prem Patel, a medical student at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, said in a news release.

“If you can exercise in the morning, it seems to be linked with better rates of cardiometabolic disease,” he said.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 14,500 people participating in a federally funded U.S. health research program. As part of the study, participants had their heart rate data tracked minute-by-minute using Fitbit devices for a full year.

Researchers tracked exercise by looking for periods when people had an elevated heart rate for 15 minutes or more. The team then grouped people into categories based on when they tended to exercise.

Compared to those who exercised later in the day, those who frequently exercised in the morning were:

• 31% less likely to have coronary artery disease

• 18% less likely to have high blood pressure

• 21% less likely to have high cholesterol

• 30% less likely to have type 2 diabetes

• 35% less likely to have obesity

These associations were independent of the total amount of exercise a person did throughout their day, researchers noted.

This is the first large-scale study to assess exercise amount and timing based on long-term data from wearable devices, researchers said.

“In the past, researchers have mainly looked at how much physical activity to do, the number of minutes or the intensity of physical activity,” Patel said. “Now with 1 in 3 Americans having a wearable device, we’re gaining the ability to look at exercise at the minute-by-minute level, and that opens a lot of doors in terms of new analyses.”

However, the study wasn’t designed to explain exactly why morning exercise provides better health benefits.

It could be that biological factors like hormones, sleep or genetics play a role in the observed link, Patel said.

Behavioral and psychological factors also might be involved, he added.

For example, early-morning exercise might boost a person’s energy levels throughout the day and lead to healthier food choices, or might simply be more common among people who prioritize healthy habits in general, Patel said.

Patel is scheduled to present study findings March 29 at the ACC meeting.

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on the benefits of early morning exercise.

SOURCE: American Academy of Cardiology, news release, March 19, 2026