This is why bike commuting is so nice. My wife literally doesn’t want me driving to work haha.
Also…I have it pretty easy schedule wise in regards to training. Used to think my schedule was crap, but works out perfectly for training.
Most days…I’m up at ~7 with my kid. Get a big bowl of oatmeal in me, mess around with the kid, see them out the door by 7:30. Now I’ve got about 90 minutes to let my breakfast digest, drink some coffee, read the paper. On the bike at 9am, off at 10, hop in the shower to get to work at 11am. Works out great.
How many people who workout in the morning have physical day jobs? Or do you generally have jobs that require sitting for a majority of the day?
I ask because I usually train late at night. I have two kids, a wife, and two businesses to run.
My primary business is an automotive customization shop so I’m always on my feet and working hard (lifting, pushing cars, walking all day).
So recently I started trying to run in the mornings, and while the workouts are good, I feel dead on my feet all day. With night workouts, I shower, eat a night snack and immediately go asleep.
Is there a benefit to letting your body rest after a workout? In my case sleeping? And those who sit at a desk are at least off their feet.
I actually had to start doing morning workouts to get more family time in and to accommodate my oldest son’s ice hockey-training. However I find it harder and harder to get up and get out to do the threshold-workouts at 5 a.m. now when it’s cold and dark outside. Even though I know that 10 mins after I’m on the bike it’s all good and I’m warm enough to put on the fan/s. But I really hate it.
Lately I’ve re-arranged to get my “harder” workouts done after work at about 4 p.m. instead of 5 a.m. It’s much easier for me to work that out and I’m only sacrificing an hour of family time.
So many points resonate with me re: morning sessions. I never thought I could get on with harder sessions but have recently taken to adding on extended warmups which really let my legs and mind wake up.
I’m a morning person, but so are my children. I’m the main carer for our kids which means training in the morning isn’t possible. I can usually get them into bed by 7.45pm and be on the bike by 8pm. I eat my last big meal just before I leave work at 5pm and then have something small after I’ve trained. The big advantage for me with an evening session, is that I can extend the workouts if I’m feeling good. Not possible in the mornings.
Sorry for pulling this old thread up, but recently I have to move my workout time to night time around 10PM and want to know some technique around cool-down and calming before sleep. Would you kindly share your know-how?
Specifically, I get off the bike and sit for about 10 min uploading my data and making comments while I stop sweating. Then I grab something for recovery, on hard days it’s a protein shake and on easy days maybe a nut bar. I then do stretches (I use these but there are many routines online: Cycling Stretches, Cycling Stretching Routine, Best Flexibility Program for Cyclists - YouTube). I then shower and after that sit for about 10 min until my HR is less than 10 beats above average resting HR. Then I am ready to go to bed. This works for me and it’s now part of my routine. I have never been a morning person so this just works better for me.
I finish workouts anywhere between 10pm and midnight. I’ll do the 60g of carbs straight away and then 20 minutes late, hit the protein shake. Then either TV with the wife or shower, the order can change and then bed. Sometimes the TV session is skipped and straight to bed. I’ve never had a problem sleeping. Maybe it is because I always eat after Maybe the protein shake helps. If it is summer, I’ll have a cold shower to help cool down.
HTH
PS
I’ve tried mornings, besides finding it so hard to get up and end up hitting snooze for 30 mins, not having eaten anything and being starving with stomach growls for the workout has always lead to bad performance.
I definitely prefer the evenings. Never been much of a morning person, and after years of working night shifts and weird university schedules I find it really hard to feel like an actual human being, let alone ready to crush a hard workout. Also live alone and I don’t think my cat cares if I’m around or not
That being said I do the usual two-a-day triathlon thing, so I still train most mornings. I just schedule lower-priority/easy sessions in the AM and then hit the key ones in the evening when I know I can perform to a higher level. Interestingly I enjoy morning swims, whereas running is an absolute nightmare.
You know before all this virus thing I used to do my training routine in the evening, too. But this spring as I stayed at home, and didn’t go to work I moved my training to morning, and I felt the difference! I had more energy during the day and in the evenings I had some time for myself (I mean all those girlish things).
So, I moved to a side of morning training, and I like it.
This is such an individual thing. As the thread starter mentioned, I struggle with sleep after a ride, I’m buzzing, thus I prefer mornings. I do however find that I have better legs in the evening. I love our midweek evening blast…
In the tropics we start most of our rides very early, 5-6am, at times a lot earlier, to avoid the heat of the day, and I am fine with that. I’ve always had a morning bias so it doesn’t bother me much.
All that said consistency is probably underestimated here. Morning workouts suck only the first few times. Once you find a grove, things will run its course. Same with consistent evening rides I suppose. If you have a good routine which helps you go to sleep after you pedal your heart out, stick to that. If not, develop one!
Until recently I have been lucky to have flexible working arrangements. In those days, the best riding time of the day for me is sometime in late afternoon around 3-5pm. This way, I can have a relaxed morning to work while my mind is fresh, and hammer on the pedal to vent later in the afternoon.
However, I switched job and now have a more regular hours. I try to keep the evening for cooling down, e.g. a good meal with family, a glass of wine and warm bath. In the past few weeks, my morning rides are great but only when I can get myself up on time. Often, I feel not well rested enough to start a ride despite having 7-8 hour sleep and decent nutrition the night before.
Regardless, I am determined to make this morning ride routine works - any tips on how to form the habit? I tried the link to “Early Morning Workouts” thread, but somehow it is no longer accessible.
Best advice I can give is to get everything prepared in the evening. Bike, trainer, workout, music/media, clothing, food, drinks etc. In the morning you should get up and jump on the trainer with as little hassle as possible. This helps me get through the occasional lack of willpower, early morning blues and whatnots.
I agree on getting everything ready the night before.
Weekdays, I train the late afternoons, but ride weekends with my club mates (ride start time is 05:00). I’m usually up and out the door in 15 minutes, allowing me 15 minutes to get to the start (ready to ride, and not gasping for breath).
I get a chuckle with all the people who think getting up at 5 is early…I have to get up that early just to get to work
I hate mornings. I have NEVER been a morning person. I have had to get up early most of my life due to my careers (military, contractor work, now factory schedule) so I am NOT getting up an earlier than this! But working out at night is great for me. I can hammer out workouts just fine after midnight without a problem. The couple times I TRIED to do workouts in the morning, they are failures.
I do most of my workouts during my 30 minute lunch, in the evening after I get home, or I ride extra credit on my way home.
Have you guys noticed considerable performance differences between morning and evening workouts?
In the past I always trained in the evenings after work, around 6pm - last year with an FTP of around 250W.
After a very easy cycling season, bit of a break and COVID, I ramp tested 230W - not too bad in my opinion.
I started my training plan 5 weeks ago and always did early morning wirkouts with a slice of bread before the workout, usually some carbs the evening before. The workouts were mostly between hard and very hard.
Last week I did one workout in the evening and felt as if my FTP went back up 20W - the workout wasn’t exactly easy, but I suddenly felt MUCH stronger than during my workouts in the mornings the weeks before.
Could this be merely down to the time of the day of the workout!? Or might it be a sudden performance increase during Base 1 phase!?
I’ve noticed that fairly consistently. It’s more noticeable to me running b/c I’ll usually run at a fixed (ish) RPE and I had noticed my pace in the afternoon / evening was ~30 seconds/mile faster.
iirc, Chad covered this in a podcast a (long) while back. It was mentioned as one of the benefits of later in the day workouts.
Maybe the protein shake helps. If it is summer, I’ll have a cold shower to help cool down.
