I suffer from excessive daytime sleepiness (partly due to a disorder) and I’m sure that because of the way today’s society is, many of you or your athletes do, too.
Something that I have (recently) found certainly helps me feel better throughout the day is if I have some sort of workout to do right after I wake-up in the morning, preferably after a light breakfast or shake.
I definitely seem to respond better to workouts with some sort of muscular component, but simply do not have the time because of work to fit in a workout much longer than 15’ in the morning. Because of this, I do my primary workout for the day early evening.
My question is, what ideas do you have/things you have tried that are good for increasing overall energy throughout the day, as far as quick morning workouts go?
Personally, something like a jog doesn’t appear to do much for me. Tempo is better, bw resistance exercises a step up and weight lifting the best. A problem I have is that I do not want to have my morning workouts, serving to primarily stimulate me, to decrease the quality of workouts later in the day.
Currently the only thing I do is 500 reps of core stuff, with some stretching afterwards and maybe some bike beforehand, but abs every day always proves to be too much to me, so the setup is much more successful if I limit it to 4 days a week. I am looking for nice morning workouts for the remaining 2-3 days in the week that wouldn’t require a lengthy warm-up or cool-down.
I’ve thought of perhaps depletion push-ups/pull-ups, but I am afraid that this could interfere with recovery from upperbody days (ie 1. lower (abs am) 2. upper (abs am) 3. Off (depletion am), will I be ready for upper again on day 5?).
This season I usually do 2 of my weight sessions @6am and then I hit the track 4-5pm. Or if its a tempo day I may do 5-10xreally easy 100 with abs in the am before I do a real tempo session that night. I usually have good energy thought the day. Usually by we’d or Thursday I’m just tired so nothing can help but rest. I also go to sleep at 9pm and take zma-5.
Try some caffeine during the day to help.
thanks for the responses everyone. I wake up at 7a and go to bed sometime between 10-12, so I always get 7+ hours. I also take zma before bed, the main thing I notice from taking it is I seem to be much more resistant to catching colds, which would make a lot of sense if my zinc intake is too low without it.
once I get back into a little conditioning, then perhaps that’d be a good fit for the morning (or at least to get part of it done). seems to me that the general consensus is that lifting in the am should be fine. i think i will try doing depletion push-ups and pull-ups (as my muscular endurance is horrendous, when I can bench 1.5x BW I struggle to do 35 push-ups with good form), for now, the days that i wouldn’t want to do abs (only lifting now, more likely i’d lift in the am if i need to fit in throwing and conditioning and the such).
and i can’t stand caffeine, it just makes me feel like i’m even more exhausted, except if I just give in and pass-out, I end up in some sort of semi-conscious coma where I can’t fall asleep, but am too tired to do anything but lie down. other things work much better for me (including exercise) so I’m just in the process of trying to figure out wht works best for me!
as for strength levels in the morning, if I can spend my day prioritizing that I need a lot of energy for an afternoon workout, I put up the highest numbers then. But after a full day of work, or of classes at an academically challenging school, even a short nap is sometimes not enough to feel energized later in the day. I think track is one of the few teams that doesn’t lift in the morning at my school because our coach is more concerned with muscle tightness than putting up big weight numbers, but most of the team’s with larger athletes, that may concentrate less on injury prevention/felxibility stuff, I’m pretty certain do their high energy output stuff before classes start (so before 8a) ie crew, football, hockey, etc
they are kind of unsure. right now i’m diagnosed with idiopathic hypersomnia, which essentially just means i suffer from legitimate hypersomnia and they haven’t figured out why. The sleep specialist I see thinks it’s likely I have some sort of mild narcolepsy, but other doctors think its just some sort of general arousal system disorder (some combo of adhd and depression, resulting from poor natural brain stimulation, that seems to act out primarily in a physical manner ie hypersomnia, derealization, lack of appetite, etc). They think that my enjoyment of exercise is linked to this as it would raise hormone levels and endorphins, so they want me to exercise as much as I feel good doing since it is healthier than taking more drugs and has proven pretty effective (probably would not have made it through high school if I didn’t lift so frequently).
got tested for nearly every possible physical medical problem, including adrenal stuff, so they’ve ruled that out. certain medications certainly work, but its kind of a funny case because narcolepsy/adhd/stimulating antidepressants seem to work fantastically (increased appetite, cloud lifts, etc), yet I fail all the diagnostic tests for those disorders (getting retested for narcolepsy though). medications work like 100x better when in conjunction with intensive exercise, which is why i’d like to fit in some sort of at least semi-difficult physical work in the am
my rec is that if you feel abnormally tired, there’s no reason to not go and get checked out. I put up with this stuff for years because I was told I was just disrespectful and lazy when I kept falling asleep everywhere, but if I went in right when I started experiencing symptoms, things like my high schools years, that now feel lost, could’ve been so much better
other things work much better for me (including exercise) so I’m just in the process of trying to figure out wht works best for me!