damnable

Hi Folks,

I want to start training in the morning. This is to get more training out of me, take advantage of morning exercise benefits and save some money by commuting to work. At the moment pretty much all my exercise is undertaken in the evening and when I get home I pretty much have a quick dinner and shower and then go straight to bed.

The trouble I am having is that when I train in the morning I seem to be tired for most of the rest of the day. Now I am making sure I am eating enough aftewards and rehydrating. The same thing also happens when I forgo evening training so it happens when my total training is not higher.

The only conclusion I can come to is because I normally train in the evening and go to sleep soon after my body is equating excercise with going to sleep soon after and so starts to shut down when I warm down.

Is this possible? If it is, how do I stop it because I can't affort to be tired all the time at work. Or are there other possibilities.

Thanks

JustinHorne

I can't necessarily solve your problem, but I can offer some insight, and my observations of my own body:
For one, you say you're tired immediately after. Are you "muscle sore and want to crawl in bed and sit there" tired, or sleepy tired? I used to get sleepy tired after excersizing, but for whatever reason, I don't anymore. If you're seriously "muscle sore" tired, maybe back it off a little bit (or do less each time, a little more frequently.)

One thing that really helped me get over the "Okay, just worked out, now time for work" is proper food. I'm generally properly hydrated, but make sure you are also. For me, it's breakfast (I've always had a hard time eating breakfast, so adjust to meet your needs) before working out is some Oatmeal and a PB&J sandwich. I'm never hungry in the morning anyway, but that gets me the energy I need to go out and do some cardio. I usually eat a bar while excersizing. When I get home, the blender and I say hi, and I whip up a yogurt and fruit smoothie. If I didn't hate eating them for breakfast, this would work well pre-workout too.

Having said all of the above:
I still prefer, and think I perform better, in the afternoons. That said, it's just not possible, so that's the routine I've got.

paulclaude

Interesting. For me, training in the a.m (as long as it's not full-out hard effort) energises me for the day. It does tend to make me hungrier too though!! Are you taking a good multi/mineral supplement? I find a lot of the time i'm tired, it's purely down to mineral loss - taking a multi or magnesium supplement provides an almost instant boost of energy, but it could also be down to your food intake etc. Are you eating before/after? Hydrating correctly?

damnable

I should add it's more of a sleepy tired than physical exertion tired.
Is there a certain level of magnesium I should be aiming for? I stopped taking my multivitamin but seems like it's no harm starting up again. Makes it a bit hard to gauge hydration because of the yellow pee though.

Machka 

I prefer to "train" in the afternoon or evening. I'm just not ready for that kind of activity in the morning.

However, I do like a nice brisk walk in the morning. I worked in one place for a number of years where my morning walk was 1.6 km. Two of the years I was in university recently, my morning walk was either 1.5 or 2 km. And now, my walk to work is 800 metres. I find the brisk walk gets the blood flowing and allows me to prepare myself for the day's work. Plus it gives me anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes of exercise which adds up toward my 90 minutes a day goal.

You mention that you want to commute to work. Are you close enough to work to get there in under an hour by walking? If so, I'd suggest doing that. Start by walking casually, then pick up the speed as you get used to it. If you're not close enough, can you drive or take the train to a place somewhat closer to work, and then walk from there? Or were you thinking of cycling? If so, give yourself enough time to ride casually ... don't push it too hard. Enjoy the scenery. Use the ride to both get some exercise and prepare for your day.

ericm979

You can retrain your brain to be a morning person. I used to exercise in the afternoon/evening but when my schedule changed, switched to mornings. It's not that hard, you just need to keep at it. Maybe spend a week doing easier than normal rides in the morning to get used to it.

Machka 

I'm not so sure about that. Two semesters during my last two years of University involved getting up at about 5 am in order to drive to the next city to go to University. Although I could get up at 5 am and function all right, I hated those early mornings and had trouble going to bed and falling asleep at what would be a reasonable hour in order to get up at that time. Given the freedom, I will just naturally stay up quite late and sleep in late. That's what feels the most comfortable for me.

Although I will say that in the last year or so, I've been tired enough to go to bed and sleep at some point between 11 pm and midnight ... earlier than the 1 am to 2 am I used to comfortably go to bed. And on a weekend, having gone to bed by midnight rather than 2 am, I can wake up by 10 am rather than noon, and feel all right about it. Perhaps a shift is taking place ... perhaps that's old age setting in.

spooner

How much sleep are you getting when you train in the AM?

Nick Bain

your body might still be trying to recover nutrients. Thats the only problem I have with morning rides or whenever I just ate after being hungry for a long time (in your case overnight) and my legs just dont want to work sometimes and it doesn't matter what part of the week or training day or particular ride. I can tell cause my heart rate is so high when riding after eating and it takes an hour of easy riding before it starts to go down.

Pat

Machka,

I don't know about those ideas of changing a to a morning person. I get up at 4:30 AM and go to the gym and work out and pretty hard. It is easy for me. It feels good. I like the mornings. Now, I can work out just fine in the late afternoon. I am not all that great in the evening. I get sleepy. I sort of wonder if you would just be better off figuring out a way to get your workout at your best time of the day which seems to be the evening.

Sylv

Some questions to narrow down your issue, not claiming you should be doing anything I mentioned just trying to find out exactly what you are doing:

-As spooner mentioned, how many hours of sleep are you getting before a training day? And in general on any given day?
-What is your intensity (ave. % of max HR) and duration like?
-You eating anything before your workouts?
-You eating/drinking anything besides water during your workouts? (ie. Gatorade, Accelerade, etc.)
-What are you eating/drinking afterwards?
-Are you allowing yourself proper warm-up and cooldown time?
-Are you stretching afterwards?
-How long has it been since switching to morning workouts? Have you given it sometime to see if it was just something you needed to adjust to naturally?

ericm979

I switched from being a night person/afternoon exerciser to a morning person. I used to stay up till 3am, now I get up at 5am. It wasn't that difficult for me. But you don't do it all at once, and you'd need to back off the intensity of your training for a while to make up for the lack of sleep until you get readjusted.