I really don’t think I’m cut out for morning workouts. I have to get up at six thirty to get to work in time, and getting up an hour earlier to do a workout seems impossible. I have once or twice tried to go to the gym before work (when my work was closer to home, and I didn’t have to get up so early), but it just feels wrong. My body was tired and limp, and did not respond to any of the peptalk I tried to direct into my muscles. Are there any tricks to doing a morning workout, or should I just accept that mornings aren’t the best time of day for me to exercise? Anybody else feel that morning workouts are a waste of good sleep?

Oh do I know how you feel. I don’t work, but have to get kids up and going. I was working on morning workouts for a long time. I gave up. But lucky for me, I can work out at 8 when the kids are at school. Are you able to work out in the evenings? And what is the benefits to you working out in the morning? If the benefits outweigh the benefits to staying up and sleeping a little later, then it’s definitely worth trying to get up. But otherwise I wouldn’t worry about it too much. As long as you’re getting your workouts in, you are doing great.

Bree

I can schedule in a workout most evenings. The only downside to not working out in the morning, as I see it, is that other activities more often collide with workouts after work. No social activities at six in the morning.

The reason I’m asking, is that Scott so strongly recommends working out in the morning, and it seems that so many of you do just that. I’m afraid I’m missing out on something.

Hi,

I can’t do it either.  Every couple of week maybe I manage one but that is about it except on the weekends.  Can you do any morning workouts on the weekends?  (You wouldn’t have to get up as early either).

Scott suggests mornings because during sleep you are in a fat burning mode and still will be about an hour after you get up.

But the best time to exercise is when you will do it!  No matter how great something may be if you wont or can’t do it at that time it does not do you any good.

I do like to get the workouts done right away, but I like my sleep too much. Though when I don’t have anything pressing, I do like to work out first thing in the morning, before I have breakfast. Though, being a housewife, this is far more doable for me than for most people.

Bree

mb94558 - 31 July 2007 01:46 PM

But the best time to exercise is when you will do it!

That is so true!

Thanks to Bree and mb94558 for sharing your thoughts on this. I’ll experiment with morning workouts in the weekends, and see if that works for me, and continue to exercise after work during the week.

I have a hard time getting up early to work out too.  Usually it means that I have to go to bed earlier than I would normally, I’m one of those people that if I don’t get my 8 hours of sleep I can’t function the next day!

This can be particularly challenging for me because I have a toddler who doesn’t like to go to bed when I want her to.  So when I just cannot make it up to go exercise in the morning I try to make it up at another time, either by exercising in the evening or doubleing up on the weekend.  I try to not double up more than once a week though!

I hope this helps!

It doesn’t matter when you do it… just do it.

For the how to I can’t tell. I usually wake up early and don’t need coffee to function (it kind of making me feel sluggish or on drugs (medicinal like aspirin). So exercise in the morning seems to me the natural thing to do. If I don’t its more than I’m lazy than not up to it. I guess it goes with the morning, afternoon, night type of persons. When I do exercise in the morning I feel real great. I know people who wont talk to you before their 3rd coffee. So even if I don’t really understand the concept of not being 100% in the next 5 min after waking up. I know by personal experience that a lot of people are not like that. Don’t feel bad, its probably what makes us humans.

And like it was said sooner. Exercise in the day sure beats any form of non-exercise (by an incalculable percentage). If in the afternoon you feel the best then go for it. One of my friend who incredibly fit goes to the gym only at like 7 PM (and I wish I was that fit ).

It probably doesn’t help at all but I thought I’d share what I know (or in this case don’t)

Aloha Annemarie!

Let me suggest you give the morning workouts another try. I’ve always been a night owl, but life and circumstance have required me to become a morning person. I started doing morning workouts, getting up at 5am inn the gym by 5:30, out by 7. After a couple weeks of struggle I finally got comfortable with it and really began to enjoy it. First...my morning energy level was elevated (and in time you feel that “strong” feeling too), second I had the satisfaction of knowing I had fulfilled my commitment to healthy living, and third...when I got home from work at night, I had all the time to do what I wanted.

Mt personal obligations and situation have changed, and as a result I don’t have the same opportunities to work out in the mornings, so I’m especially sensitive to the challenges of (& excuses for not) working out at night.

Give it another shot...maybe this time it will click.

Malama Pono,
Fat Jeff

Annemarie,

I would try morning workouts again too. It is hard to get up some mornings and I’ve been doing morning workouts for ages.
Yes, it is hard to set the alarm and get up, yes to get those gym clothes on and even walk out the door some mornings. The good
side to early a.m. excercise is that it is done and you do feel better during the day. Another quirky thing is you are somewhat asleep for the first 10 minutes or so and it goes faster. LOL

I have to be out the door at 6:40 every morning, so 5 a.m. is the latest I can get up. Even that changed with the SMSM program and Yikes, the alarm was and still is set at 4:30 every morning. And guess who was up at 4:20 on the weekends?

It’s a habit, maybe a strange one when you think, OMG getting up that early! But it works for me and I have found time for
another activity at night, yoga.

When I do sleep in, my yoga (stress relief) has to go for that day.
Give it a try again
josie

I’m not a morning person, and in fact if I have to get up earlier, I’d much rather use that time to go to work earlier so I could leave earlier. But after several stops and starts, I realized that I will never be able to maintain a P.M. workout. There are just too many things that come up during the day, like I need to go run an errand, or sometimes I have to work late, etc.  I also much prefer the gym in the morning--it’s less crowded and a more serious, less “show off” crowd there too.

So, after considering all the possibilities, I realized that the only way for me to make sure I didn’t miss my workout, was to get it done first thing in the morning.

I have kind of a strange routine, because I don’t have to be at work until 10 am. I go to the gym at 6 am, come home and meditate (or doze off, LOL), then shower and leave for work.

I still have my 3 cups of coffee/tea AFTER my workout. 

I like the IDEA of morning workouts...unfourtunatly I already have to get up at 5:45 just to make it to work on time...so getting up in time to get to the gym for an hour before that just seams cruel.  Besides working out when the 3 pm doldrums hit really wakes me up!  On saturdays I like to workout in the mornings though.  Thats when I hit the pavement for a nice Long run.  Leaves me feeling great the rest of the day!

I like my morning workouts too.  I tell myself at night that I’m getting up at 4:30 for my workout and I don’t allow any excuses.  I have way more energy during the day and I know I can do whatever I want to at night (lately it’s another workout); tomorrow it will be out to dinner with family.

I set my alarm at 5:00 AM and have my work-out clothes sitting out complete with shoes and socks.  My water bottle is left in the car each day and I keep my locker combination lock in my purse.  I get to the athletic club when it opens at 5:30 and fill my water bottle and hit the track.  This is the only time of the day I know that there will be no other conflict (except if I get to bed late).  I ALWAYS make it to the gym 3 times a week, I Almost always make it 4 days, frequently make it 5 days, I sometimes go 6 days.  I rest on the 7th day as God did.

Amen, ladybug. I always take Sundays as rest days too. Unless there has been some major reason that I have to work out Sunday, I like to use it as my rest day. Anyway, after working this past week, I was really seeing the use of the early morning workouts. There was a chance it would become more permanent, and I was finding myself trying to come up with a way to work out at 5:30 when my gym doesn’t open until 6:30. But, alas, my life will get back to “normal” and I can keep my 8am workouts. So all you early morning workouters great job!

Bree