by Molly Rausch, MS ATC, CPT, CES
Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about how to get up for your morning workouts. With summer vacation over and school starting up, it may be hard to fit those afternoon or evening workouts in. Many of us may have to switch to early morning workouts again to ensure we get our workout in. The darker and colder it gets, the harder it is going to be to get out of bed and workout.
A couple months ago, my weekly tip was on how to implement a new fitness routine. Specifically, I mentioned how habit building creates successful changes to fitness goals. To refresh, research shows that it takes at least 60 days to make a new habit. Habits take time, but if you stick with them success follows. For those of us that need to get our workouts in first thing in the morning, we need to start now to ensure we develop the new habit by winter. Now is the time to implement techniques for rising early, before the weather changes, schedules fill up, and motivations waiver. Luckily, there are plenty of tips out there to help us stop hitting that snooze button and get to the gym.
Tips For Becoming an Early Riser:
- Get Enough Sleep: Along with developing early morning wake up habits, you need to also get in the habit of sleeping early. It’s easier to get up early when you have had enough sleep. I know it’s not always completely controllable, but adults should get no less than 7 hours of sleep. So do the math and get the necessary z’s.
- Be Prepared: Set your workout clothes out the night before, then all you need to worry about in the morning is putting them on. Being prepared gives you a little more sleep and makes you less likely to skip the workout.
- Put the Alarm out of Reach: You can’t hit snooze if you can’t reach the alarm. Move it just far enough that you have to get up to turn it off.
- Set your coffee maker timer: I don’t know about you, but I NEED my morning coffee. Even if I am waking up for a workout, knowing I have a little bit of coffee brewed and waiting for me is a little more motivation to get out of bed.
- Let the light shine in: I know this one gets harder to implement as the days get shorter, but sunlight plays a big role is our sleep cycle. Use the sun while you can to help get you up and out of bed.
- Stop and Smell the Peppermint Oil: If coffee isn’t enough of a motivator, smelling a little peppermint oil could help increase your alertness. Once your alarm goes off, applying a lotion or something with peppermint oil may be enough to wake you up and get you moving.
- Success in number: you are more likely to get out of bed and do your workout if you have someone waiting for you. A workout buddy, group fitness class, teamTRAIN, or personal training session are all tools to help you if you need a little external force to help keep you accountable and awake.
- Take the First Step: the hardest, but most important step to getting up for your workout is actually taking that first step out of bed. Whatever tools help you do this, use them to accomplish this task. YOU CAN DO IT!
If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me at mrausch@healthworksfitness.com or comment below!
Molly’s Fitness Tip of the Week 