How to: Rise & Grind

The whole ethos of this blog, apart from my personal musings is to inspire and educate people into making positive changes in their life and that starts with one small step.

The Rise&Grind!

Training first thing in the morning can relieve stress and flood your body with happy endorphins as well as having that huge benefit of giving you a better life/work balance which includes more time with your family and friends!

Now it may not be for everyone, but trust me when I say if you decide to train this way it will have a positive impact on your life, you will gain hours in the day you never knew existed. This process is all about optimising your time in the day. So here are my five top tips on how to Rise&Grind.

1 – Prepare

Make sure all your clothes are laid out, bags packed & nutrition for the day is ready to go. For me I like to be out the house within 15 minutes of waking, that means I’m up, teeth brushed, Coffee brewed, bag on the back and I’m out of there ASAP.

2 – Plan

Make sure your workout, journey and destination are planned the night before. If your training right from your front door then this is less of an issue. Some days I will be located somewhere random in the country and I have to locate a local gym near to where my destination is to make sure my morning session is in the bag.

3 – Train your sleep cycle

Now this is the hardest step. You have to train yourself into one of those dreaded morning people, and trust me, it can be done but it takes quite a bit of time.

The first step is making sure you’re in bed early enough to get some solid sleep (I go for as near to 8Hrs as I can) and if that means being in bed by 9.30 – 10pm then so be it. You’re seizing so many new hours early within the day that you can lose a little at night.

The next step is to make sure the alarm is set for the exact same time every day. This way the body slowly starts to recognise that as the time to wake up and you will eventually find your body will start to awake at this time in a more natural pattern.

4 – Start slowly

For the first few weeks take it slowly, dont get up and try to smash some beastly HIIT workout, instead go for a slow jog or a light spin maybe even try some yoga. Get your mind and body into that positive habit of getting up and moving before work. Then as time goes by (after a good warm up) you can up the ante and throw down some beastly interval sessions before work.

5 – Coffee

I love coffee. And man, nothing wakes me up like a good brew. So get the kettle on, the french press out and make your morning ritual include a great organic coffee! Time it well so it starts to kick in just in time for your workout (This usually takes around 40minutes for most people) and then you have your natural pre-workout sorted.

I’m a big believer in exercise’s effects on your mental health and working out before you hit the office is a great way to awaken your mind and set you up for a good day ahead.

So try it out and let me know how you get on!