How I Trained Myself to Wake Up Early to Workout

I fell in love with working out in high school. It was actually before high school since I was doing pushups and running before I even got into high school. When I started high school though, it was off to the races. I admit those first workouts were miserable. The first time doing a squat will do that to anyone, but I loved the feeling of getting stronger. Plus I knew it would aid in football (which was why I was there in the first place).

One thing I learned early on was to use the mornings to train. I only did that back then because the heat in Florida was too unbearable to go out and workout at 2pm during the summers. The other available time was 6 in the morning. My sleep schedule adjusted accordingly, but I also wasn't doing anything else during summer aside from video games, so I had time to get a nap in some days.

When it got to the season, working out in the afternoons was "easy." The gym was or field was there, the team was there and the coaches were there to tell me what to do.

In college, my schedule was whatever I wanted it to be, so I'd go to the gym when I pleased. That could mean the afternoons or late at night (not recommended). During my last year, for some reason I started going in the morning. The crowd was much different. A lot of ROTC and an older, more mature crowd. It was more serious and much less crowded.

Many years later, I was only lifting (no running) and had joined a CrossFit gym that allowed me to do so off in the corner. I was in college (again) at the time, so sometimes that forced me to get my workouts in early in the morning. What's funny is that despite hearing "you're not as strong in the morning," I hit some of my best squat numbers at the time.

Before we had kids, my wife and I had created our home gym. When would I workout? Who knows. It was all over the place. Sometimes it was the morning (if I got out of bed after a ton of gaming the night before). Sometimes it was the afternoon. Sometimes it was none. If I was going to another gym, I wasn't using the stuff we had at home anyway.

The Problem With the "Whenever" Schedule

I was getting older. Responsibilities were creeping in. I didn't know that willpower drains, no matter who you are. I should have known this already, but let's do a thought experiment. What do you want to do at the end of the day? Work on a project? If you have nothing going on, then yes, maybe. However, it's so easy to let all the distractions on the world take hold of you and never let you go until you pick your head up and realize it's time to go to bed.

Let's define willpower again: the ability to resist something. Using your "will" to "power" against a temptation (lol). Without getting too technical, your willpower can drain for anything and everything, not just the big stuff. It's about the same as going for a nice, easy long walk but then having to do a heavy squat session at the end of the day. The walk wasn't too taxing, but the squats could have been easier if that walk didn't happen.

This isn't just in the physical realm. Every time you have to think, change focus to another topic, or deal with a minor bit of stress, your willpower drains. This is why you get so bogged down at the end of the day that all you want to do is relax (usually with junk food and your streaming service of choice). As a side note, I said this happens when you switch focus. This is why scrolling on your phone to oblivion "tires" you out, even though you think you haven't done anything. Your body is at rest, but your mind is not.

Maybe you're in the same boat as my former self. You're not a kid in high school or a college kid with a schedule that's as light as tissue paper. Don't beat yourself up if you get to the end of the day and wonder why you can't muster up the energy to work on your own health/strength/fitness/project/whatever you want to call it.

You're still an animal after all.

Since your schedule is full and working against you, you have to figure out how to win the game.

"Just Workout, Bro"

Here's what I'd try to do to fix this problem.

Since I was working at home, "I'll just workout during lunch, right?"

Maybe.

Since your little work chat apps are available 24/7, your coworkers are going to try to infiltrate your life no matter what time it is. Also did you have a rough morning of work? Boss yell at you? Confusing project? That's what you're going to be thinking about when you're in your garage. (A good scenario here is that you workout at home. If you have to go to the gym during work mid-day, more power to you, but the willpower thing still applies.)

What about after work?

Unless you can go to a physical location off-site from your house, I don't know how you'd do this. I'm biased since I have kids, but even if you didn't, imagine that stressful workday scenario. Now you have to go push it again in another domain of your life. Even if you had the most peachy keen day possible, I want to assume the worst and pretend you have had the worst day possible at work. Want to go workout now? No? Didn't think so.

Personally, with kids I didn't see a way to make post-work training happen. If my wife picked up one or both of them, could I sneak in a 30 minute workout before they got home? Would it be worth my time? What about on weekends? Then the kids would be home and we'd have to feed them and do the whole PM routine. That lasts from about 5-7:30. Would I workout after that? Ha. No.

Guaranteed Consistency

Let's do another little train-of-thought math equation. Want to achieve something in life? It just comes down to doing the few 1-3 tasks to get you there done every day. That's it. Health/fitness/strength? It comes down to a few things:

• Train hard

• Recover for the next training session.

Yes, there are a lot more steps in those two steps, but you get the idea.

It's no mystery why little "child prodigies" are the way they are. It's just because they showed up consistently for years. If there's a little 7 year old that seems advanced in some area, it's because he or she has probably been practicing for 2 years straight. Yes, there are other factors involved because they have a set schedule, a parent who paid for the lessons that takes them there, and they showed up no matter how they felt.

But that just means your adult self has to train your child self to show up. How can we make this happen, as busy adults, without fail?

Enter the mornings.

The 5AM Miracle

I'm not new to waking up early and working out since I've been doing it for a few years, but I recently had an epiphany: for me, working out was my main thing. The term "eating the frog" means doing the hard thing first. Why not just put the workouts in the mornings? All I had to do was plan my nights to set myself up to have a good workout the next day.

If you're already waking up early to work on something, keep at it. I don't want you to think that you have to wake up even earlier at about 3am just to fit a workout in.

I'm not that crazy.

The 5AM Workout Model for Busy Parents and Other People Who Want to Get It Out of the Way

Here's what you do:

Set a goal

• Yes, get a goal. Have a starting point. It could be show up for x amount of days or lose y amount a weight. It gives you a reason to pick one method over another.

• Write it down.

Get a training program

• Want to ease your brain into doing something? Tell it what you're going to do before hand. "Just go to the gym!" Good luck telling that to a newbie. What do I do? What are planes of motion? What are the exercises? Free weights or machines? Find something, I don't care if it's not perfect. Nothing is. Just start.

Sleep train your kids (if you have them lol)

• Nothing will happen if your kids are sneaking into your room or crying because you need to rock them completely asleep. Figure it out. They'll live. They need the sleep and your sanity needs the peace.

• If they're old enough to be told to leave you alone (as long as you're waking up before them, right?) then tell them it's you time. They can wait or go back to sleep. (When they get older you're probably going to have to wake them up anyway.)

Plan your pre-workout nutrition

• I'm not going to tell you what to pick. Liquid "meal" like a protein shake and coffee, a full small breakfast or fasting. Figure out what works for you.

Lay out your workout clothes

• Seems silly, but we want to set up your brain with as many wins as possible to reduce decision fatigue. "What should I wear?" This should be happening at night and not at 5:10am. You need to be a zombie that just puts the clothes on and gets to work. Pretend you're a world class athlete about to perform. They probably knew what they were going to wear 3 months ago.

Go to bed on time

• Turn off the TV. Turn off the video games. Turn off your phone. Be a responsible human being, stop staring at blue light and go to bed.

• If you're getting up at 5, you should at least be heading to bed starting at 9 or 10. Ideal is in bed by 9. A master is going to bed at 8.

Start Easier than your ego wants you to

• If waking up early to workout is new for you, then start small. Maybe you need to build the habit of just setting up and getting up. Seriously. Just work on waking up at 5, do 10 pushups and call it. "But that won't make me ripped!" Are you doing anything now? No? Well you have work to do. It takes more time to set up to do the thing than to do the thing itself. Plan ahead for a work task and be better to your future self.

Iterate Iterate Iterate

• What does iterate even mean? It means try something and if it stops working, or your goals change, or you lose zest, then pivot into something else. Don't be married to a training program. Be rigid with your goal, but flexible with the process.

• Examples:

  • "I want to squat 500lbs." Nice, but do you have the time to do a 5×5 workout 3 days per week? No? Find something else.

  • "I want to burn fat." Well, just eat better. I also believe strength training is better for that, but if you want to wake up and go run, be my guest. Or even better, do both.

  • "I don't want to lift weights!" Resistance training doesn't mean go to a gym and try to deadlift 600lbs. Do pushups.

Mornings are Overpowered

There will be arguments saying that we aren't as strong in the morning, that mornings aren't the ideal time period for strength training.

Fair enough.

But I didn't write this for people with all the time in the day. I'm talking to busy people.

If you're one of these busy people, you owe it to yourself to go to bed at a reasonable hour and finally work on the fitness goals you've let slide.

Make your future self proud.

Go to bed on time. Wake up on time. Put your body to good use.

Thanks for reading!

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