If you work out early, do you wake up at the same time on your rest days, or do you sleep later on days when you have no workout? It looks best for me to do a morning workout once or twice a week (I have typically exercised either at lunch or in the evenings), and I am unsure whether a consistent wake-up schedule would be preferable over the [likely] increased sleep I’d get if I just shift my schedule as necessary.
I keep my wake-up time consistent
I change my wake-up time based on my daily schedule
There’s no way I’m waking up at 4:15 every morning to occasionally sit around the house and wait until its time to go to work, and equally very low probability of me wanting to sacrifice my evenings with family to do so.
This is a tough one. Generally, my early workouts have pushed my natural wakeup time earlier and I feel like getting up at around the same time as good reps for getting up at an early time. However, 4:00 am is a little too early to start the day most days and the extra sleep is good recovery.
I’m up at 6, on the trainer at 6.30 and done at 7.30 when the family is up. Rest days still up at 6, do half an hour of yoga or something. It works well for me keeping the same wake up time but 6 isn’t so early, if it were 4 I would struggle.
I get up at the same time every day. Even if I stayed up until 1am, I would wake up at that time anyway. Too many years of waking up at the exact same time to change it on certain days.
I tried keeping it the same. But now am treating sleep like extra time in zone 2 and trying to add minutes wherever I can. So far it’s working better than the extra time on the trainer
I’m in the same situation as you (but no family except 2 fur babies that love to have wwe matches at midnight) and getting up at 6am regularly wouldn’t be much of a stretch for a ‘normal’ schedule.
I find as with most things related to training, ‘consistency in all things’ works for me. If I start waking up at 7 or 8, then I want to do that more and more. If I stay regimented and wake up at 6 then it keeps me focused on the training, and on days off I have that extra time to do whatever, usually read.
I stay consistent. Wake up at 6AM on weekdays, usually 6:30 on Saturday, and 7 on Sunday. I’ve been getting up early for so long I have a really hard time sleeping in, which is ok because I’m a morning person anyway.
My morning workouts are usually weights or core with the occasional short trainer ride (Dans, usually). I save the longer/harder workouts for after work and weekends starting around mid-morning.
I try to get up around the same time (5:20-5:40), and will do some easy yoga/foam rolling, relax with the cat, or tackle the dishes that I promised to do the night before. I don’t hold myself to this and am more than willing to get an extra hour of sleep if I think it’s needed.
I wake up between 4-5am every single morning with or without a workout scheduled. It’s exremely frustrating. If I could fix one thing with my training it would be learning how to sleep.
Our toddler is up at 5 no matter what. She doesn’t take no for an answer. By now the wife and I have adapted to her schedule and actually are quite happy with it.
I wake up at 5:30 AM so I can get into work earlier. On the weekends I don’t set an alarm clock but find my self naturally waking up around the same time. I don’t try to fit it either, it makes it easier to get up during the week.
I chose keeping time consistent for the poll, although I can’t say it is purely by choice on the “off days”.
Similar to several others here, I have small children and wake up 4 of 7 days specifically to get extra time for exercise. On the other days I often would like a little more sleep but find my body normally naturally awake. In the odd case I feel that I could easily sleep longer usually one of our children is awake.
Since I have to be at work @ 06:00 I’m normally up at 04:50. During winter I get off work early, so I do my workouts in the evening, but through spring, summer, and fall I have to get up at 04:00 and be on the trainer by 04:10 to get my workouts in. I set up my breakfast and lunch the night before so I can ride, shower and head out the door.
I go to bed when I feel tired, which is generally around 9pm. Wake up refreshed every morning between 4:20-4:40 without an alarm clock.
The biggest problem I have with my sleep is that I work as a firefighter and depending on how busy we are, I will have some low volume and/or low quality nights of sleep. Most nights at work aren’t that bad and will still feel refreshed even with an hour or two less sleep. However, once or twice a month will have a seriously compromised night of sleep. When that happens I’ll go to bed an hour or so earlier than normal the following night and seemingly sleep deeper than normal and will wake up refreshed and back on track with my normal sleep cycle. Two things that I have learned in my years as a firefighter is that I can’t take naps and trying to lay in bed past 5am doesn’t seem to allow me to get any extra sleep. It just seems that this is my circadian rhythm and I just feel better when I stick to similar bed time/wake time schedule every day.
A side benefit to being a “morning person” is that when race day comes, I do not have the stressor of having to wake up earlier than usual. I’m awake feeling good with plenty of time to get all pre-race stuff done without feeling rushed. I always set an alarm for race day to prevent a catastrophic morning, but don’t really need it. Generally on race day I’ll wake up earlier than an alarm excited and ready for the day!
I’m up between 5:15-5:25 every day, including weekends. When it’s a no-ride day I actually really enjoy the couple hours in the morning to drink some coffee, watch the morning news, and generally relax before heading to work. Maybe I’m just more of a morning person to begin with.