early morning workouts

I swim at 6 AM twice a week, and I find that it is a good way to start the day. One thing that helps me is not go back to sleep if I wake up, let's say, 30 minutes ahead of when I plan to get up. Just get up!! I found that if I went back to sleep it was much harder to get up. I get up and have more time for a leisurely bite to eat and a look at the paper.

I Work out swimmingaprox. between 11 A.M> and 1P.M. Iam not an early workoutguy. Reason forthat is ,my last 25 yrs in the work force. But never the less my body starts to rebel if I start 9 A. M. Or earlier. Oh I worked nights. Some meets are good because start after 11 a.m. Like in the nationals . Fri I swam about 1 p.m. Thru. About . 12 noon. But sunday swim will be 8 a.m.I will be awke phyiscally. But I dont know about being awake Mentally:cool: :)

this is especially relevent as I plan to start 6am practices this monday... for the sake of conversation, i've always had a bit of difficulty training in the evenings. i did martial arts for several years and found that evening practice often left me wide awake until 1 am, hence my reasoning for the am masters (not to mention staying out of the hot florida sun and better parking opportunities :) )

Although I must back track a little. When I did some boxing I hadto do early morings. go to work and cotiune , late afternoon sessions. But when you are excersing in the open air ,youcanbreather ,like full air breathing. But I found that when you are swimming. it is a lot harder to breath. Especially in the moring hours. I will add this if I were traing ayoung fighter today. Be it lady or man they would have to do swimming excerise and the emphises would be on breathing, beside any other required, excersies. But again I be hard put to get upearly. Dont forget if you go to the pool inearly moring then what time do you have to getup. WOW.

Going back to the original question, does 5:30 AM workouts make swimmers tough, I don't necessarily think it's just the 5:30 AM workout, but it's the workout that follows the same evening and doing this over and over again. When I was an age group swimmer we had 5:30 to 7:00 AM workouts Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We had evening workouts from 6:30 to 8:30 PM Monday through Friday, with dryland training from 5:30 to 6:20 PM Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And to top it all off, we had a monster Saturday workout from 7:00 to 10:00 AM, which sometimes we would hit the 10,000 yd threshhold. I think following a weekly schedule like that makes a swimmer tough. Also, we had an "elite team," which were those of us who were idiots who would also workout on Sunday and during meets where we did not shave and taper.

I think that swimming early in the morning is tough only if you are not a morning person. We have a group of swimmers here in Utah that swim at 5:30 am and seem to be very happy with it. It suits their schedule. Personally, I am not a morning person and I am fortunate that my schedule allows me to swim in the noon workouts--to swim at 5:30 am would probably cause me to quit the sport! I envy the early morning workout folk when nationals are in the Eastern half of the US: I assume they do not have problems starting so early!

I was never a "morning person" until I got a shift at work that required me to show up at 5:00 am. I found that I could be a morning person if I just went to bed really early. Back then I would swim in the afternoons after work. I thought I would have a problem getting to sleep early, but after a couple of 3:30 am alarms I had no trouble at all. I'm back to a more "normal" work schedule, but the pool is ridiculously crowded at night (especially since the idiots at the Y schedule swimming lessons and water aerobics at the pool's busiest times). So I started swimming in the mornings before work. It means I have to get in bed early again, but I've done it before. One thing that really helped me get to bed earlier is that I killed my television. I don't have cable, and I threw away the antenna so that all it can do now is display DVDs. When I have television, I'll watch it instead of going to bed. I think I'll go to bed after this show is over, but I end up watching the next. Then the news. And hey, I'll just watch Letterman's monologue... But wait, I want to see that interview, too. With no television, it's a lot easier to get to bed on time. That makes it easier to get up on time and get to the pool. Ironically, I work in television, but I can say with all sincerity that you won't really miss much if you kill your teevee. Another thing that helps me wake up is hunger. I find that if I eat less (or nothing) in the evenings, it's easier to moving in the morning. If I wake up hungry, there's something more enjoyable than sleep calling to me. If I eat a big meal in the evening, I don't think I sleep as well, and I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. Just try going to bed early, and you can be a "morning person" too.

When I returned to swimming in 1999, I swam in the evening after work. As soon as I would exit the building, the negative self-talk would start to kick in. I'd had a "hard" day, I was tired, I didn't really need to swim, etc., etc. After about 10 weeks of listening to that stuff, I decided that if I was really going to make "it" work, I needed to get to the AM workout. 6am! and for about 12 or so weeks it was hell. But, after I adjusted to the schedule, it's worked out for the best. Now I rise to swim (sometimes) before the alarm goes off, I arrive to work most mornings in advance of most co-workers and I'm very, very awake. Plus, the 6am group is considerately more competitive than most of the evening folks so, I feel, I get a better workout. One drawback for me since switching to am workouts is I can not "sleep in" anymore, even on weekends. I end up at the am workouts on Saturday and Sunday also. I think trying to split the day in two would be counterproductive and too time consuming.

One of these days I hope to try morning workouts (if only from the standpoint is I hope I have more energy to put in a harder workout than my evening workouts). My question to you all out there is what are your thoughts on 2 workouts (AM and PM swims) per day like many swim teams do vs. one swim a day? Whether it is doing 1/2 your normal workout for the AM and 1/2 for the PM, or increasing the daily workout across the two? Just curious of any thoughts of those of you that might get in two swims on benefits you find of doing such. Thanks. Dan

I'm with Jim on this one. I am not a morning person, and it is not easy, but I can't imagine how I could swim at any other time - with work and family, there is no other option. And I don't get sunburned. It was only when my kids got old enough to leave alone in the morning that I could swim at all.