Morning Exercise
Get Moving Early
The value of morning exercise will be immense for anyone. If normal exercise would be like driving a BMW (really good), then morning exercise is like speeding with a Ferrari - Just so much more rewarding! And the best part is that anyone can design their own morning workout routine.
"Physical fitness can neither be achieved by wishful thinking nor outright purchase"
-Joseph Pilates
Why Exercise In The Morning?
If you aren't convinced that morning is the best time to exercise or you don't believe in exercising that much at all, then I suggest that you just give it a shot too see if it works. Believe me, you will soon see the benefits. You should of course also check out the top reasons for starting a morning workout right now.
In short, it provides you with energy, happiness, a potential long-lasting habit and great start of your day.
If you really want to know in depth about the exercise benefits for your immune system, then I strongly suggest that you look into what health expert Therese, author of ImmuneSystemRemedies.com, has to say about the topic.
Choosing Your Type Of Exercise
So what do I really mean when I talk about exercise? Every week we just get bombarded with different tips and tricks for how to get slimmer or for how to get fantastic abs.
How can a normal person be able to find what she needs when a Google search on the work exercise gives several hundreds of million results?
First of all, the focus here is not just to give you a fantastic body, but to actually use exercise as a tool to accomplish something more.
A great life. Starting with a great morning.
Through this approach, physical and healthy results will inevitably be seen very soon as well.
Basically, there are a couple of different types of exercise you can perform, divided into two groups:
- High intensity training (HIT) - Running, Gym, Crossfit, Swimming, Bicycling, Aerobics, etc.
- Low intensity training (LIT) - Jogging, Walking, Yoga, etc.
Of course, activities such as bicycling could as well be places within low intensity training since it all depends on your own chosen intensity.
Anyway, myself, I mostly focus on really high-intensity training in my morning routine. I want to do it fairly quick (15-30min) and I really want to become awake straight away. I always start my training within the first 15 minutes of waking up. I usually have a minor breakfast (yoghurt or similar) just to get going.
What fits you the best must be decided by yourself, but I can provide you with some good questions to help you reach a decision.
- Do you have really close access to a sport facility in the morning?
- Do you have access to a great outside environment to use in the morning?
- Do you want to exercise in the morning to feel good, build muscle or lose weight?
- Are you used to exercising regularly?
Answering these questions might help you to decide what type of exercise fits you the best. If you have a great outdoor environment, then use it! There are very few things better than some fresh air in the morning.
The reason why you want to exercise should guide you in the planning of your morning workout. If you are doing it to feel good and really wake up, you might not need the most intense routine and it might be enough to go for a walk with a friend.
Here's a list of some alternatives to get inspired and read more about:
Rule #1 For Morning Exercisers
If you are really serious about your morning exercise, you have to following the most important rule. Just as with waking up early in the morning, the key is to
MAKE IT A HABIT
It is absolutely critical that you do your morning workout routine every day. "But come on! Once in a while is enough for me.", you might say. Well I'm sorry, according to my gathered experience from myself and working with others I have to disagree. Let me explain why.
There are 2 main reasons. First of all, if you skip it once in a while it becomes a hell of a lot easier to find excuses those times you might not feel like doing your morning exercise. Since you don't do it every day anyway you might as well postpone until tomorrow.
Second of all, and this is the important one, it becomes much tougher every day you do exercise. When you've really developed an exercise habit, you can just continue on autopilot. In the morning, you will automatically start. Your mind knows it. Your body knows it. There are no questions about whether it's going to happen. It always does.
Even before you wake up, your body knows what is going to happen and makes it easier for you to continue your routine. There's no room for any excuses anymore. But all this doesn't mean that you have to start too tough, just begin with a morning jog a few times per week and develop from there.
So once you have understood the benefits of morning exercise, try it yourself and see. If you develop your very own morning workout and stick to it, I can guarantee you some extraordinary results - for your body, for your mind, and for your life.
Early Riser > Morning Exercise
Thanks for reading! By Matthew M. McEwan
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