I was diagnosed in June on this year. I am also very active working out every day. I was either lifting weights, walking 6 miles, swimming, working in the yard, etc. I started on 20 mg of prednisone for the first 2 months. My rheumatologist then reduced it to 15, which caused the pain to intensify so she bumped me up to 17.5. That seemed to be ok but the mornings are tough. There are some mornings I actually need a walker to get to the bathroom. Gentle stretches and walking seem to help the most. After 2 weeks of the 17.5 (now on 3 months of taking prednisone), I am back down to 15 but split the dose by taking 10 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon. I will see how that does. I agree, doing anything strenuous in the morning is not a good thing. My Rheum and my PT keep saying less is more with this condition, and that is a very difficult thing to accept and adhere to for some of us. As difficult as it is, I am learning to cut back. Afternoons are definitely more conducive to more strenuous activities (the "new" strenuous for us:-)). The difficulty I am having is I am dealing with RA, osteoarthirtis, bulging and compressed discs so it is trying to figure out what I can do without setting off a reaction to one of the other things.