Viking Muscle Natural diet, Natural power, Naturally brutal

Sluggish? Not for a viking!

If you’re like me, the morning always comes too soon.  I am not, and never will be a morning person, however I have found a few tips to really get me moving in the AM.

Number 1: The obvious, get more sleep

I see this everywhere, “get more rest”, “go to bed earlier”, “don’t do any activity an hour before bedtime”.  In my world, sometime this just isn’t possible.  I’ll be the first to tell you that you shouldn’t make excuses for yourself, but with a demanding work schedule and a number of other reasons for staying up late (World of Warcraft…), we need to adjust our lifestyles a little to help us ease into bed at a reasonable hour and make the sleep we do get more valuable.  Here are a few things we can do:

1. Dim the light in your house before bed:  This will help signal your body to settle down and make it easier to fall asleep.
2. Use your bed for a bed:  Stop reading, working, or browsing from your bed.  Calming the brain when we get into bed helps us sleep better.
3. Don’t go to bed angry or anxious: This one is hard at times, be we need to make an effort to check your troubles at the bedroom door.
4. Don’t sleep on your stomach: This was a biggie for me, sleeping on your stomach hyper-extends the back, causing back pain the next day (even more with big pillows) and it can deprive you of oxygen, which will cause headaches the following morning.

Number 2: Get moving!

For some of you, morning workouts are perfect, for the rest of us, it’s like pulling teeth.  Working out in the morning is a great way to get your body burning calories for the day as well as setting a commitment to sticking to your daily goals.  Remember something is always better than nothing when working out.  Here is my 15 minute AM Workout:

1. Pushups:  3 sets of 10 reps, I will try to vary the types I do each morning to keep it fresh (Decline, Plyometric, Pyramid, etc.)
2. Pull ups:   3 sets of 8 reps, work on increasing the reps here as you go.
3. Abs:  There are a lot of great ab workouts out there so I didn’t reinvent the wheel.  Even though its cheesy and old, 8 minute abs is a great, quick, easy routine to get you moving.  It’s available on YouTube here.

Number 3: Fuel up

They always say “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, and for good reason. When you skip breakfast, you are likely to become tired when your brain and body run low on fuel. Then you have to try to perk up with a cup of coffee or a sugary pastry, this is a temporary fix, then you crash. Leaving you feeling hungry, crabby, and perhaps making you a little more prone to make unhealthy choices at lunch. Start the day right with a filling, healthy breakfast.  It should contain some protein to help fill you up.  Here’s what my breakfast looks like:

1. 2 egg whites, 1 whole egg.
2. 2 slices of bacon (sometimes turkey bacon)
3. 1 glass of water (this is very important to rehydrate in the morning)
4. 1 Orange
5. 1 Banana

Get up get moving, get strong!