Developing my Morning Routine
I have always been a morning person, even in high school when kids are notorious for sleeping late. I always woke up bright and early. My reasoning is simple, I have always felt it to be important to make the most of my day and I have always taken pride in being the first up.
Since the summer of 2016 when I finished my masters degree, I wanted to take back my health and fitness. During grad school, I was consumed by writing papers and other assignments, I let my self go and put on about 10 extra pounds. I would use the early mornings to do the majority of my school work instead of push-ups and sit ups. Again, because that is when I operate best and I did not want classes to interfere with family and work. As a result, my fitness faded, the sad thing is I was oblivious to how much it actually did. I think it really hit me was during the summer when I was coaching high school football and we had our picture day. When our pictures returned, I was completely embarrassed by how I looked. I became self conscious of my appearance, and I tried to lift weights in the field house after practices but it did not really do much in regards to losing the weight I gained. I still ate what I wanted and by the end of the summer, I began grad school again, so any habit I developed went out the door and trying to rely on coaching football in the afternoons to burn calories wasn't the answer either. In January of 2017, I was able to get to get a job in physical education again which allowed me to move through out the day. At the time I could barely even do a sit up which is embarrassing when you are asking kids to do something that you barely can do and I made a promise to myself that if I am going to be a P.E. teacher, I need to at least try to look like one and not one of those stereotypical lazy coaches that sits in the corner reading a news paper.
I began simple and I still incorporate this into my mornings. I admit it was weird at first to start doing push-ups in front of my wife randomly but it had to be done and that is what I did. I began by trying to do a 100 push ups or sit ups a day. I would do them in sets of 20 or 25 and some days I would push myself to do more as long as I got a 100. Some mornings I would run a mile or so but nothing major like during marathon training, but just enough to get my heart rate up.
My goal most days is to make sure I do something even if I happen to sleep later than normal and I only have 10 or so minutes to get some push ups in. Something is better than nothing. I am not a member of gym and I keep it simple. On any given morning I will run 3 miles, do 3 sets of 20-25 push-ups, 3 sets of 30 body squats, 3 sets of 25 curls or triceps extensions. I also will mix in pull-ups and just do them till exhaustion. Sometimes I add a weighted vest to the mix. I try to keep my workouts random and simple. When training for the marathon kicks back in, some of these exercises will take the back seat for a while, but I still try to get them in when I can. Everyone has to start somewhere and this is how I started.
Since the summer of 2016 when I finished my masters degree, I wanted to take back my health and fitness. During grad school, I was consumed by writing papers and other assignments, I let my self go and put on about 10 extra pounds. I would use the early mornings to do the majority of my school work instead of push-ups and sit ups. Again, because that is when I operate best and I did not want classes to interfere with family and work. As a result, my fitness faded, the sad thing is I was oblivious to how much it actually did. I think it really hit me was during the summer when I was coaching high school football and we had our picture day. When our pictures returned, I was completely embarrassed by how I looked. I became self conscious of my appearance, and I tried to lift weights in the field house after practices but it did not really do much in regards to losing the weight I gained. I still ate what I wanted and by the end of the summer, I began grad school again, so any habit I developed went out the door and trying to rely on coaching football in the afternoons to burn calories wasn't the answer either. In January of 2017, I was able to get to get a job in physical education again which allowed me to move through out the day. At the time I could barely even do a sit up which is embarrassing when you are asking kids to do something that you barely can do and I made a promise to myself that if I am going to be a P.E. teacher, I need to at least try to look like one and not one of those stereotypical lazy coaches that sits in the corner reading a news paper.
I began simple and I still incorporate this into my mornings. I admit it was weird at first to start doing push-ups in front of my wife randomly but it had to be done and that is what I did. I began by trying to do a 100 push ups or sit ups a day. I would do them in sets of 20 or 25 and some days I would push myself to do more as long as I got a 100. Some mornings I would run a mile or so but nothing major like during marathon training, but just enough to get my heart rate up.
My goal most days is to make sure I do something even if I happen to sleep later than normal and I only have 10 or so minutes to get some push ups in. Something is better than nothing. I am not a member of gym and I keep it simple. On any given morning I will run 3 miles, do 3 sets of 20-25 push-ups, 3 sets of 30 body squats, 3 sets of 25 curls or triceps extensions. I also will mix in pull-ups and just do them till exhaustion. Sometimes I add a weighted vest to the mix. I try to keep my workouts random and simple. When training for the marathon kicks back in, some of these exercises will take the back seat for a while, but I still try to get them in when I can. Everyone has to start somewhere and this is how I started.
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