How to Enhance Your Morning Workout
Get-Fit Guy has 4 easy tips for how to improve your morning exercise routine so it’s most effective. (Hint: It doesn’t involve push-ups!)
Ben Greenfield
In my earlier episodes What’s the Best Time of Day to Work Out and Should You Work Out Before Bed, you learn that if you’re going to do a hard workout, you should do it when your body’s core temperature naturally peaks, which is generally sometime between 4pm and 7pm.
But of course, it may be simply impossible for you to wait until that late in the day to exercise, and you may instead need to get your workout checked off the list first thing in the morning. If that’s the case, you might be interested in the recommendations from the researchers in a new study “The influence of the time of day on core temperature and lower body power output in elite rugby union sevens players.”
In the study, the researchers did indeed discover that power output was lower in the morning as compared to later in the day. No surprises there. But they also recommended that heat pads or heating “gear” be used to enhance workout effectiveness if a morning workout was indeed necessary. So what kind of things can you use to enhance your morning workout?
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A long warm-up. Simply warming up longer than your normally would is a perfect place to start.
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A heating pad. That’s right – you can simply lie on top of a heating pad for several minutes, alternating between lying on your back and your stomach, to get your core temperature higher.
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An infrared sauna or infrared mat. OK these types of items are a bit more spendy, but the heat penetrates your body far better than a basic heating pad or even a dry sauna or steam room at the gym (another excellent choice).
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A hot tub. That’s right, as long as it doesn’t make you too sleepy, a pre-workout hot tub soak can do wonders for your post-hot tub workout performance.
A long Do you have more questions about how to enhance your morning workout? Leave your thoughts over at Facebook.com/GetFitGuy.
Heating pad image courtesy of Shutterstock.
About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.