I wake up just before 4am to train. I’ll list the things that made a big difference for me.
- Make sure your room is pitch black (first time I did this I thought “fuck it’s dark in here”). That means no device lights, thick curtains, no light coming through the cracks in your door - completely black. I used to need upwards of 9 hours or I’d feel tired, this easily made the biggest difference in being able to wake up and not feel like a zombie (I don’t even drink coffee first thing anymore).
- If you can’t get silence in your room, consider a fan to create some white noise
- I sleep at 10:30, I turn off all devices and as many lights as possible at 10:00 (I have lamps for this purpose now). I then prepare my gym stuff, put keys and everything else ontop of the bag, prep my food for the next day, get ready for bed and stretch and foam roll (this makes me sleepy)
- I drink very little after dinner and nothing after 9:30 (I’ll have a peppermint tea at 9ish LOL). You want to avoid needing to wake in the night to slash - you may be able to get away with more liquid in the evening than me
- If I am feeling really tired when my alarm goes off, I will negotiate with myself to at least put my feet on the floor and sit for a minute before just dozing off. I’ll then repeat (under my breath) “Do you want to sleep or do you want to compete in states next year?”. This is lame AF but it works most of the time.
- I have 1 cup of milk, 1 scoop of whey and a banana on the way to the gym (all ready to go, just need to pour the milk and shake - as the gym bag is ready, the morning is barely any effort above getting up and changed, this is important!)
- At the gym, I fill a bottle of water and drink that down as I warm up (i.e. the empty bar). I can usually stomach water by now.
- If you have fluro lights (big or compact), see if you can find an alternative.
I find this the best trade off betweem time and the ungodly hour - I’m not starting my prep at 2am LOL