Zin

I have always worked out at night, I am not a morning person. I loath getting up in the morning, I feel physically slow and mentally groggy.

Recently though I have found that I simply do not have time at night to work out, so I have decided to make time for my workouts by getting up an hour and a half earlier than I normally do to work out. This means I get up at 6 and am in the gym after a good breakfast (oatmeal with fresh fruit, egg white omelet) at about 6:20am. I have good quality sleep and get about 7-9 hours depending on how tired I was the night before. (I go to bed when I feel tired, not at a set time) I have been doing this for about 1 week so far. I have experienced three alarming symptoms of working out early in the morning that do not make me feel good about the schedule.

First, I have noticed that I do not sweat nearly as much as I would normally. When I do finally start to sweat only after I start cardio, I notice that I get a very strange prickly sensation all over my body for about the first 3-5 minutes of starting to sweat. And again, the amount that I sweat is MUCH reduced from what I normally would if working out at night.

Second, I find it very difficult to get "psyched up" when lifting in the morning (aka adrenalin dump) as compared to at night. Normally I feel really good while working out at night both physically and mentally but in the morning I feel sluggish.

Third, no post workout endorphines. I just don't feel that much better after working out in the morning. I feel normal during the day. Normally after I work out at night I feel REALLY good after working out. In the morning, not at all.

I can only think of two causes. The first is that genetically I am not a morning person. I have read that there are genetic links to circadian rhythm which influence whether or not a person is a "morning" person or not. The second is dehydration. I realize that after 8 hours of sleep, the body can become dehydrated, or at least not as hydrated as I normally would be at 7pm. I have tried to force water down when I first get up but I have difficulty taking in as much water as I would like on account of it being 6am (water tastes strange to me before noon for some reason) Additionally, even if I slug down a litre of water at 6am, I doubt it has had time to be absorbed into the body tissues 20 minutes later when I am working out.

I suppose I will keep working out in the morning because a bad workout is better than no workout at all as far as I am concerned, but I wish there was some way for me to correct these symptoms so I could again look forward to working out...