Curt's Fitness Journey

This post, in a sense, is a bit of sequel of my post last week talking about Why I Workout EARLY (And You Should Too)!

As I mentioned in that post, I think it’s of the utmost importance to get into the gym in the morning before the craziness of your day begins and you find an excuse to not get there.  There’s a variety of other reasons as well that you can read about it in my other post but long story short, I feel that it’s imperative to get your workout in early.

Now the obvious part… that means I  actually had to get up early!

And for me, that was easier said than done.

Personally, I was never one that could sleep in until 1 in the afternoon like my friends in college but waking up at 5 in the morning was another beast altogether.

Finding the energy to get my butt out of bed at that time was just something that was insanely difficult for me to do initially.

When I first tried, I would find myself hitting the snooze button like 5 times and not finding the energy to actually get up.  I would just lay there, try and go back to sleep and just hate myself for trying to get up that early.

Then, if I could actually get out of bed, it took me forever to actually get ready.  Finding clothes to wear and actually functioning just didn’t work for me.

It seemed like waking up at 5 meant not getting out of the house until 6:30 (and let’s be honest, guys really don’t need that much time to get ready, I should have been outta there in like 10 minutes!).

So, I started looking around for some tips on how to wake up early and actually get moving.

…and I came across a few different tips that I slowly started testing out on myself until I found something that worked for me.

I tried waking up to music and that worked for a few weeks, but eventually just died out.  Then I tried some other sounds to wake up to and some worked better than others.

What I ended up doing was something different altogether.

Instead of worrying so much about what I was waking up to I simply moved my alarm clock (well my iPad actually) so that it was completely out of my reach.  I literally put my alarm clock on the other side of the room so I had to get my butt out of bed and hit the snooze button if I really wanted to.

Eventually, I realized it was easier to just go, turn off my alarm clock and stick myself in the shower for a couple of minutes.

This helped me waken all of my senses and within a few minutes, I was showered and out the door, ready to take on my workout.

Now, I wake up between 5 and 6 regardless of the alarm clock since my body got used to it.  It’s kinda weird to wakeup at 6 on the weekend but to be honest, I absolutely love it!  I feel like I get to really enjoy the day when I wake up early!

Now, I’ve experimented with some other apps and tools to help me get a better sleep and wakeup better that I’ll talk about later.

But, if you’re like me and just need something to help you get up and out the door, try moving your alarm clock for a week and see what happens!

Hopefully it helps you like it did for me!

–Curt