By Rachel Roth

So, it’s no secret that I am not a morning person. Nor is it a secret that I rarely get enough sleep at night. Therefore it’s no surprised I tend to be tired a lot. Lucky for me, I usually do my training at night, when I am more awake and able to perform at full capacity. But, there have been a few days the last couple of weeks when the only time I could train was early in the day, and that’s how I figured out that I definitely don’t like training in the mornings.

In crossfit, we are always working on training our weaknesses, and being prepared for everything and anything. Well, one of my biggest weaknesses would be working out before noon. The other morning I went to my box to do my lifting, since it was the only opportunity I had that day to get my work in. Lets just say that lifting session did not go well. One of the poorest workout sessions I have had in a while. And when I thought about why it was so bad, I realized that I probably hadn’t slept enough the night before, nor have I been sleeping enough in general, and I also just have a really hard time waking myself up in the morning. Have I mentioned I really dislike the morning?

Now, you might ask why it matters that I don’t lift well in the mornings. I can just lift at night, and not worry about it. But what happens when I have a competition that starts at 9am? What happens when I can’t train any other time but in the morning? Do I just accept that my morning sessions won’t be good ones?  As an athlete, that doesn’t sound like a great plan to me. So instead, I am going to start training more in the mornings.

I am going to start figuring out how best to wake myself up in the mornings, so that those morning training sessions can be as effective as the evening ones.  I’ll try everything from cold showers, hot showers, no showers.  Solid food, liquid food, no food.  Coffee, no coffee.  Tons of mobility to warm up, no mobility to warm up.  You get the idea.  We need to experiment to find what works best. I am going to train mornings until I start to enjoy training mornings, so that when I have a competition that starts at 9am, I know I’ll be ready to kill even that very first Wod. I am going to start training mornings, so that they are no longer a weakness.

If you’ve always trained at the same time during the day (be it night or morning), try switching it up. See if there are other times of day that you train better, or even worse. Keep switching it up to stay on your toes, so that you’re always prepared for everything and anything.