How To Wake Up Your Body To Improve Your Morning Workout

Some people swear by getting their workouts in first thing in the morning, and others just can’t get themselves going.

Exercising in the morning certainly isn’t something that comes naturally to a lot of us, and even the best athletes find their minds start to talk them out of getting it done.

Once you do finally get going, it’s common to feel sluggish if you haven’t woken up properly. Often everything just feels like hard work and it’s difficult to perform at your best.

But it doesn’t have to feel so tough. If you take a little more time in the morning to do things the right way, you can prepare your body so you can improve your performance and feel better after the workout’s done.

Here are some simple ways you can improve your AM sessions to get that morning workout feeling.

Caffeine

Caffeine is proven to boost your performance at any time of the day. It’s a stimulant that reduces your perceived pain during really hard efforts and improves your focus.

Using caffeine in the morning isn’t a secret - hundreds of millions of people all over the world start their day with it. But being mindful of the way you can time it to impact your sessions could be really helpful for your training routine.

While loads of athletes love a strong coffee, you don’t have to brew up if you just don’t like hot drinks. There are lots of different ways you can get a caffeine fix instead, like using energy drinks, gels that contain caffeine, caffeine tablets or even energy chews.

Activate

It’s always important to activate muscles, but particularly when you’ve been lying down all night and the muscles haven’t been used.

Doing simple activations will enable you to recruit more muscle fibres so you can improve performance, and also lower your risk of injury.

Some simple examples are glute bridges to activate glutes and hamstrings, calf raises, or short duration planks to wake up your core.

You can also use a foam roller, a pulse roller or a massage gun to stimulate blood flow to key areas and major muscle groups that you’ll be using in your workout.

Progressive Warm-Up

Starting your warm-up slowly and gradually getting more intense will help ease your body into things first thing in the morning and get you ready for the session ahead.

It also helps psychologically, particularly if you’re prone to lacking motivation first thing. Starting slowly will help ease yourself into the workout, and as you move through the gears you can mentally prepare yourself for some harder work.

Try to finish off the warm-up with some specific exercises that are shorter or a little less intense than the main part of the session itself. For example, if you’re going to be squatting then finish the warm-up with a set at half the weight you’ll be starting the main session at.