How to Work Out in the Morning

invest in a SAD light?

it sucks to get up for the gym in the morning, BUT it is well worth it.

I put my alarm in a different room so i have to get out of bed to turn it on
I have everything packed and laid out so no thinking is necessary in the morning
I go to bed early to make sure i get enough sleep

when in doubt, keep in mind how good you feel after a work out!

The best way that works for me, I have home workout videos, and it's easy for me to get up and do them early in the morning.

Depends what sort of thing you want to do. My technique is to dock my ipod and turn the volume UP on music I've specifically picked for having a beat that makes me WANT to move. Then I lay on the floor, feet under the sofa listening to it and by the end of song 1 I've begun my routine :P

if you lay your workout clothes out and just everything you need thats like have the battle lol and once your dressed why waste that effort by not going to the gym

I too am very busy and morning workouts are the best time for me but I am always tired as well. The last few weeks I have been determined to get up and make it to the gym for the 545am cycling class and each time I have been very happy that I pressed my way. I have found that exercising in the morning gives me that boost of energy that I need through out the entire day and I'm not as tired. As another person stated, get your stuff ready the night before so all you have to do is get up and go...try it, you'll be very happy that you did. You can do it

- lay out your workout clothes the night before (as previously mentioned)
- commit to 3 days a week to start. I tried the "get up every morning" and just gave up, even though I knew that if I stuck to it, it would become habit. I found that it's a lot easier to get up early every other day even though I'm pretty sure science would frown upon it.

Ditto above - home workouts!!

DVD's are easy to pop in the player & use!

Set multiple alarms like my daughter does - seems to work for her (most of the time anyway :laugh: )

Good Luck

Di

I agree with the working out at home suggestion. There are tons of great DVDs on the market. A previous poster mentioned Beachbody, I love their Turbo Fire and Chalean Extreme programs. These workouts are about 40-45 minutes each which is great for the AM when you're short on time, take up very little space and can be done with minimal to no equipment.

Cathe Freidrich is my fitness HERO!!! She has over a hundred DVDs....step, kickboxing, aerobics, bootcamp, weights, etc whatever you're into, she has, and will totally kick your butt with it. www.cathe.com she has nice long clips of each dvd she puts out on her site.

It's hard dragging my butt out of bed in the morning, but not driving to and from the gym alone is a timesaver. I also feel that getting enough sleep is part of the equation too - if you're up till midnight, getting up at 5 is going to be a lot more difficult than if you had gone to bed at 9 or 10.

Do you have any friends at the same gym who might be prepared to go with you? My friend and I made a deal to meet at the gym every morning and because I didn't want to let my friend down, I made myself go. We ended up going every morning for nearly a year!

My gym is a 10 minute walk from my house. I take a short cool shower before walking over, that always makes me wake up and feel human.

I'm thinking of shaking things up by walking for an hour instead of getting on a machine, or riding a bike. I'm going to go look at a bike for sale today.

I'm a SAHM (as if I'm ever home though lol) and don't have time for the gym, i live 40 min from the nearest gym, I'd also need an affordable option for my two kids while I'm working out. Just getting the kids ready to go, the drive there, then work out, shower, and back home would take wa-ay too much time for me. So, I had to look into other options, the gym just doesn't fit into everybody's lifestyle. I get up before them and bust out a workout from home. A minimum of 20 minutes, usually 45 min to an hour. If you have the space, you can look on Craigslist for some equipment (bike, treadmill, elliptical, weight bench etc) or pop in a video you like. I like to switch it up, which it why my times vary

. Some mornings, it's hard to get motivated, so I'll find a shorter video that I can add on to if I get motivated once I get moving or I jump on the treadmill. I don't know if you've ever heard of the flylady, (she's not fitness related) but she has this motto... "You can do anything for 15 minutes" and I use that motto for just about anything that I think I don't want to do. Just give it 15 minutes, and if I'm ready to stop after 15, I do, but if I'm not (and usually I'm not) then I keep going.

I'm in with the "at home" crowd. I work 2nd shift so getting up early is not the problem for me... it's the motivation. But the other side of the coin is that I won't berate myself for being too lazy to work in 30-45 minutes worth of exercise before work. And, I Get To Eat More! (all the motivation a girl needs!)

I use to be able to workout in the mornings. As a matter of fact I tried working out this morning but was too darn tired. I may have to go to sleep an extra hour early because doing 90 mins in the evening is taking up my evening times. I say this, when you do workout in the mornings, at least you got it out the way .