It’s a well known fact that those who have a steady, timetable regime for eating and training make the best gains. In fact, it’s entirely probable that anyone who has a set timetable for anything in life is likely to be more successful at anything than those who don’t stick to a set regime. It’s a discipline and organizational thing.
Well, one of the most important decisions you are going to have to make when embarking on a bodybuilding regime is what time of the day you plan to work out. Will it be the morning, afternoon, night time or any and all… a mix?
Don’t get me wrong, you can make great progress fitting sessions in where you can, but, the body likes nothing more than to know what’s coming. It responds best this way. Just like a dog who knows what time his walks are, and maybe won’t walk an inch if you take him several hours later. (Hey, we all tend to sleep at the same time, so why not train at the same time?) It’s a body clock thing.
So let’s look at working out in the morning. There are fundamental rules you must follow to get the best out of this, and get enjoying and making the most of your morning sessions – and failure to abide by these rules will mean you are likely going to suffer and call the whole morning thing a bad idea. Let’s see what I mean.
First things first: The average person works or has school, and, the thought of getting up even earlier can seem a fate worse than death. And out of the blue – it can seem like you are death warmed up. You’ve got to ease into it. Start by setting your alarm to wake you up 30 minutes earlier each day over the course of a week. Eventually your body will start to readjust to this, and you’ll eventually have 1-2 hours extra in the morning to eat, train, shower, and eat again.
Ok, so you get the whole getting up thing, and now for the eating. If you don’t eat breakfast and don’t do weights, you are doing yourself a great disservice physically and mentally. Your body needs fuel in the morning after starving itself for a good 8 hours or so. It’d be unthinkable for you to go 8 hours without food whilst awake, so, it’s no different when you’ve been sleeping.
If you do weights and don’t eat breakfast, you are not just shooting yourself in the foot, you are literally blowing your foot off. You are in the game of building muscle – and your body has gone an entire 8 hours without eating. Now, you are going to go another 2-3 or even 4+ hours before eating because you ‘don’t do breakfast’. Well, let me advise you on this: you either learn to eat breakfast and ease yourself into eating in the morning (and then it’ll become normal for you and easy) or you are throwing great gains and effort away.
Because you are training in the morning, eat plenty of carbs and protein before training, and plenty afterwards. So in essence, you are having 2 breakfasts. Or… if you are going to work / school an hour to an hour and a half after training, you can simply eat there.
Aside from getting up on the dot, and the extra emphasis on eating breakfast, there’s not a lot more I can say about training in the morning.