Early morning training is a highly polarizing topic! Some people love to get up early to go for a run or hit the gym to start their day, while others really aren’t fully awake until lunchtime comes around. Often times people are forced to train in the mornings before school or work out of necessity, because it’s the only time they have to get a workout in. Whether you enjoy training in the morning or not, you need to understand that training soon after waking requires some special considerations to ensure you get the most out of your workout and avoid injury. Use the following tips to maximize the effectiveness of your morning workouts – it’s time to rise and grind!
1. EAT RIGHT THE NIGHT BEFORE
If you’re going to train early in the morning, make sure you eat a quality, nutritious meal the night before. Avoid the junk food. You want to wake up feeling refreshed and energetic, not bogged down with a food hangover from the night before! Make sure your meal has an adequate amount of healthy carbs, like rice or sweet potato. Having your muscle cells full of stored carbs from the night before will ensure your performance doesn’t suffer early in the morning.
2. HAVE YOUR GEAR READY
Make sure to have all your gear packed in your gym bag and ready to hit the gym early! Having to scramble in the morning to find a clean pair of gym shorts is a major time killer and can prevent you from getting to the gym on time to start your workout. You don’t want to have to cut your workout short so you can make it to school or work on time because you were unprepared.
3. PREPARE YOUR BREAKFAST
Eating breakfast in the morning is individualistic. Some people find that if they eat first thing in the morning before their workout it makes them sluggish, while others couldn’t imagine training on an empty stomach. You’ll really have to experiment to find what works best for you. Whether you like to eat before or after your early morning training, getting everything ready the night before is a great way to be more efficient with your time.
4. TAKE A HOT SHOWER
When you sleep, your body lowers its core temperature in order to get into a deep sleep. When you wake up, you’re still pretty cold and your body can take a few hours to warm up. Going to the gym with a low core temperature makes you more susceptible to injury. Try taking a hot shower in the morning before you train to get that core temperature up, so your body is ready to perform at the highest level.
5. GET YOUR PRE-WORKOUT IN
Taking a high-quality pre-workout supplement can turn your sluggish early morning workout into a powerful, highly charged training session! Use a product like Six Star® Pre-Workout Explosion to shake out the cobwebs, get your focus dialed in and your energy fired up to perform at your best.
Get ready to crush the weights with Six Star® Explosion!
6. START WITH EXPLOSIVE MOVEMENTS
After a thorough warm-up, begin your workout with an explosive type of movement. This will help to better activate your central nervous system and really set the stage for a great workout. An example of this would be to perform 3 sets of box jumps or, if you don’t have a box, simply jumping as high as possible vertically in the air. These aren’t jumping jacks, so make sure to really explode up with all the power you can muster in order to get the full effect of this exercise. Another option would be plyometric push-ups, which are similar to regular push-ups except you must explode off of the ground so your hands leave the ground for a moment before returning back down into the regular push-up position.
