Everyone has time constraints, and everyone needs sleep. But, when it comes down to training, when do you do yours?
I'm not goint to sit here and tell you what is right and what is wrong, or really give you much of an idea of what will be right for you, but I will give you some insight into what has worked for me and some of my thoughts behind why.
In general, I'm more of an early bird. I have the mindset of getting up early, getting things done, and having the rest of the day for whatever else may be going on. But beyond that, I generally enjoy the quiet of the early morning and lack of people out not bothering me while I'm focused on me and my training. I also have the mindset of training when you'll be racing. Triathlons are typically early morning starts, so why not be accustomed to it?
But I also think about performance. I know that for me, I'm not going to be knocking out my best times at 4:30 in the morning doing heavy interval sets on the bike, on the road or in the pool. So this is when I think more about doing my training in the afternoon or evening.
I've had a whole day of being lightly active, so my muscles are awake and hopefully somewhat loose. I have also had a full day of feeding and getting energy into my system. On those early days, I don't take much in before training. This, for me, makes it more possible to get the most out of hard sets. I know things are firing on all cylinders and I'm ready to go. Contrast that to the morning where I've just woken up, I'm sleepy-eyed, and my body hasn't switched over into its metabolic state yet.
The benefits I see of early morning training go beyond just the idea of being used to getting out early for a race, but also for some weight management. My body has been at rest for the past 6-8 hours, or whatever amount I've slept, and has been storing nutrients and somewhat shutting down so that I don't wake up in the middle of the night starving. So when I get up and get going after some coffee and a quick bite, I am instantly burning off those waste stores my body was holding onto while I was sleeping.
To add another reason why I prefer morning vs. night training is the fact that it takes my body a while to wind down after a good session of whatever I had just done. And when I'm out running until 9-10pm, this means another 1-2 hours before my body can feel calm enough for sleep. But everyone is not like this. Some people thrive at evening/night training. I have gone running with people who are done at 10pm training, can hit the bed and be asleep 30 minutes later, and back up again in the early morning for either work or possibly training. Me? No chance. I would have been tossing and turning for a while, probably gotten up to eat more food or drink more water.
In the end, it comes down to a few contributing factors. The main one being your life schedule. If you have to be up at 5am in order to make it out the door and to work on time, maybe that early morning stuff isn't for you. Unless you're in bed at 8pm. And conversely for the other end of the spectrum. If you're an early bird, hitting the pavement before the sun says 'hi', then you'll need to be that person in bed early, making sure you can recover properly from the training of the day, and also rest up for the next day of training.
Either way, find what works for you and try to stick with it. Being a creature of habit isn't always a great thing, but if you can be consistent not only with your training plan, but also when you train, your body will start to fall into a rhythm it can understand. And that will help you get the most out of each session.
-Dave
Comments