How To Prepare For A Morning Workout
There’s merit to rising with the sun and hitting the iron in the early hours. Morning workouts are more than convenient — there are also some potential performance benefits in store if you can get into the habit. What sounds simple in theory can be treacherous in practice. You’ve undoubtedly set an alarm for an early hour plenty of times and smashed the snooze button plenty more. At 5:00 a.m., your phone’s wake-up call is far from soothing. Since that’s easier said than done, this guide will set you up for success and help you get your butt in gear in the morning.
How to get yourself to the gym promptly and ready to work.
Step 1 — Plan Your Workout in Advance
You should have a well-designed training program at your side in the first place, but this is doubly true when you’re trying to become a morning person. One of the best strategies for combating fatigue or tiredness is to remove as many variables as possible.
The less you have to wonder about or worry over when you’re getting out of bed, the more likely you are to stick to the plan in the first place. If you know what you’re going to do in the gym ahead of time, all you have to do is get yourself there.
Step 2 — Pack & Prep the Night Before
If you’re not used to waking up early, the prospect of having to pick out your gym outfit or pack up your gym bag can be just stressful enough to make you throw in the towel altogether. But if you take the time before bed to lay out what you’re wearing and whether you’ll need your weightlifting shoes, lifting belt, or wrist wraps, once you roll out of bed the next day you can just grab your stuff and go.
Step 3 — Move Your Alarm
The allure of the snooze button can be the bane of your existence in the early hours. To avoid five extra minutes morphing into thirty, place your phone across the room from your bed. The same idea applies if you use a conventional alarm clock — the motion of getting up to turn off the alarm should be just enough to break inertia and get you going in the morning.
Step 4 — Hydrate and Caffeinate
To get yourself from half-asleep to pulling a heavy deadlift, you must dust off your internal systems well before you set foot in the weight room. To that end, chugging a small glass of cold water when you get out of bed can help awaken your digestive and regulatory processes.
Further, an empty stomach means that supplementing with a stimulant like caffeine should work better than if you ingested it after a meal. Caffeine is well-known for its ergogenic benefits, but some research indicates that it improves alertness and mood if taken in the morning.
Step 5 — Eat Something Small
There’s nothing wrong with training on an empty stomach. On the other hand, a small meal like two eggs and a cup of oatmeal or even a meal replacement shake could help put some pep in your step in the gym.
When it comes to aerobic output specifically, some literature suggests that training completely fasted shortly after waking may dampen your performance in cardiovascular workouts.
Step 6 — Do Some Light Cardio
If you’ve got your logistics squared away and make it to the gym, you should probably take a few minutes for a light cardio warm-up before grabbing your first weight. Whether you hit the elliptical or work through a kettlebell circuit, some total-body movement will get your blood pumping and help your body recognize that it’s time to work.
Benefits of Morning Workouts
Unfortunately, gravity isn’t any less forgiving in the weight room at the crack of dawn. However, that doesn’t mean that the time of day has no bearing on the outcome of your workout. There are both physiological and logistical factors at play that may help convince you to train well before noon.Getting up early can be a hard sell on its own, and adding an intense work out on top of that might be a tall order for you. Like with any decision you make about your training or diet, you need to weigh the pros and cons.
Seize the Day
Whether you dwell in darkness or shine in the sun, what matters in the arena of muscle & strength gain is the effort you put in and the consistency with which you apply it. That said, the folks who leap out of bed at a quarter past five and crush a full-body workout before most people have finished brushing their teeth might be onto something.
Early morning workouts aren’t magic, but they’re more than convenient. Making your training your first priority of the day should help you get more value from the work you put in. It’s worth trying, and the results should speak for themselves.
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