5 Tips for Working Out First Thing in the Morning
We all have different day-to-day schedules and different preferred sleep schedules. Some people prefer to train late in the afternoon when they’re done for the day, some prefer getting a workout in mid-day, and some prefer to exercise first thing in the morning. This article is for those who get it done right when they wake up. Whether you are running, biking, lifting weights, or any other exercise: these tips will help you out. However, even if you work out a little later in the day you may still want to stick around- odds are you’ll have to work out first thing in the morning at some point in your life.
Prioritize your sleep
This is likely something you intuitively know you’ll need to do. The quality of your sleep is important no matter what time you work out; however, if you exercise right when you wake up, your sleep quality can have a much greater effect on the quality of your work out. If you wake up after a terrible night’s sleep, there’s a good chance you’ll convince yourself to not work out at all. So, here are a few quick tips to help you sleep a little better:
1. Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day
2. Make the room as dark as possible (ideally with either black out curtains or eye coverings)
3. Try to make the room cold (~67-70 degrees) using either your thermostat or a fan
4. Try to limit screen time before hitting the bed
Try to avoid doing it fasted
Truthfully, there is no real benefit to doing your weight training or cardio fasted. If your overall calorie and protein intake for the day is the same, it likely isn’t going to make much difference. If there is no difference, you might be wondering why I say to avoid fasted exercise. I argue that you should avoid it because your performance in the workout is going to be much better if you are not fasted. Over time, consistent work outs with better performance will lead to better results.
Now, our problem is how do we get food in our bodies in a timely manner. After all, the whole point of working out first thing in the morning is that it is time efficient, right? Taking the time to eat a meal and digest would add a substantial amount of time we need to delegate in the morning. So, to avoid having to make, eat, and digest a whole meal, here are two strategies to keep yourself out of a fasted state while you’re working out:
1. Try to delegate most of your calories to right before you go to bed
I want to point out that when I say this, I am not suggesting that you add a bunch of calories to your daily intake to accomplish this (although if your goal is to put on weight and muscle, then that would be a good idea). Rather, I am saying that if you can move a good amount of the calories you’re eating in a day to right before you go to bed, that will make a difference in how you feel in the morning. We’ve likely all at some point eaten a bunch of food at night and still felt full in the morning. That is essentially the feeling we are after with this. If you do this, even if you don’t eat before you exercise, you likely still aren’t in a true fasted state yet. To be in a true fasted state, it will likely take more time than one night’s sleep for all the food you eat to digest.
2. Find a good carbohydrate and electrolyte supplement
Most food items will take too long to digest and leave you feeling sluggish in your workout if you’re doing it first thing in the morning. However, there are plenty of different types of supplements that are made of fast digesting carbohydrates and electrolytes. Most of these are made to be taken either right before exercise or while you’re exercising if you are doing anything for a long period of time (>2 hours). The important thing here is that you try them out in practice before you try them first thing in the morning. The last thing you want is an upset stomach pushing your schedule back. I will put a link to my personal preference below if you are interested in trying the one that I use below:
Have a cup of black coffee before you exercise
There are two reasons I am going to suggest you do this. One will be obvious and the other you might have not thought of. First off, the caffeine. No matter what type of workout you are doing, caffeine will improve your performance. It will especially make a difference when you are training this early as well. Our aim is to sleep well enough to the point where we are not excruciatingly tired in our work out, although caffeine will remove any doubt that we are ready. Further, I make the suggestion of black coffee over pre-workout because I have found that taking pre-workout supplements on an empty stomach can give long lasting stomach discomfort.
The second reason why black coffee can help is because, well, it’ll make you poop. This is a trick I got from one of Nick Bare’s YouTube videos. If you’d like to check him out, I’ll leave a link to his page here- he is also the owner of the supplement company that makes the carbohydrate supplement I mentioned earlier. Something we can probably all agree on is that we feel lighter after we go number 2. This is something that will almost guarantee you feel better while training. It also just helps to know that you won’t encounter any stomach discomfort in your workout.
Spend some extra time warming up
If you’ve read any of my other articles, you may have noticed that I am a big believer in warming up; and for good reason. It substantially decreases your risk of injury and can improve your performance in your workout. Right after waking up our bodies generally need a little more time to get to the point where they are really ready to work. For a more detailed description on warming up, check out our article Warming Up Properly.
Get some food in you as soon as you can after training
If you work out first thing in the morning before getting any real meals in and then wait a long time to get a real meal in, you might experience an exaggerated amount of tiredness and drowsiness. This is a problem, because the reason we are working out so early is so that we can get more done in the day, right? Your best bet to fight off any post workout tiredness is to make sure you get in some calories as soon as you can after your workout. If you make your food at home, this can be as simple as just knowing what you are going to make for breakfast. This way you avoid spending any time trying think of something to make. It can also help to have a meal prepared if you meal prep, or just make it the night before.
