What’s Your Pre-workout Like?
Having high amounts of energy dedicated to exercising is vital for achieving any kind of long-term success on your fitness journey. If you look around the fitness community, you’d find so many influencers focusing on improving their lifts and bodyweight exercises with a routine of supplementation and inner motivation.
While it’s important to focus on getting stronger each week to make noticeable progress with your physique, this progression is centered around supplements that promise better energy and ox-like strength. As weightlifters and athletes get accustomed to these stimulants, the workouts improve up until a certain point of plateau that many don’t see coming (see How the Law Diminishing Returns Apply to Bodybuilding).
This stimulant, caffeine, present in most of these pre-workout powders and drinks, influences your nervous system to create a temporary flight or fight response. Depending on this stimulant for energy on a long-term basis can create a dependency or addiction that can have negative effects (See Why Drinking Coffee Will Make You Old, Fat, and Broke).
To avoid the ultimate pitfall of burning out your central nervous system, more natural and sustainable methods of generating more energy and motivation are necessary to enjoy and maintain long term results.
I believe the #1 reason why people decide to not to exercise or even quit exercise altogether is a lack of a natural energy and motivation. If your already burned out from taking stimulants for most of your years in the gym, this article will showcase natural methods to obtain more energy regularly.
How to Get Energy to Workout Without Caffeine
The reason why stimulants in powder form or liquid pre-made drinks are so popular amongst fitness enthusiasts is due to how it effects intensity when performing any kind of dynamic movement. This is because the caffeine affects how well your body can respond to outside stressors, which can produce a large amount of strength from the muscles within a small window of time.
This factor of intensity over a period of time is known as power, which can be improved by increasing this intensity to move larger amount of weight within a short duration of time. For exercises or workout programs that emphasize moving weight over a short time, it’s necessary to have a high amount of energy to perform these lifts optimally.
Overall, for these type of exercises to be effective workouts for a body part group should never last longer than 60 minutes. After this time window, energy levels tend to dramatically decline and there’s a tendency to go through the motions without much concentration or focus (see Why Workouts Under 60 Minutes Are Better For You).
So if you want high amounts of energy for your workouts, keep the workout programs shorter but effective. Focus on doing the amount of sets and repetitions that will keep your routine within an hour.
Here are a few more natural methods that can used to get more energy before beginning your workout:
Wim Hof Breathing
Oxygen is an important molecule for the overall performance and well-being of the human body. Without properly breathing and controlling respiration while exercising, it becomes very easy to get fatigued and lethargic. Wim Hof breathing originates from an athlete and motivational speaker from Poland that rediscovered the secrets of concentrated breathing and the impact this breathing has on overall energy.
The method for Wim Hof breathing starts with a deep breath in a seated position from the mouth and and an equivalent exhale breath from the nose. This slow breathing is repeated 30 times until the last breath is held for a maximum of 5 seconds before releasing.
Performing these breathing exercises will be ideal as a warmup after a light session of dynamic exercise stretching (see Why It’s Important to Correctly Stretch Before Exercise).
Music
Listening to music has the tendency to instantly change our moods for the better, especially when life may throw an unexpected curveball or things may not be going the way that we like. The right music can instantly shift your energy from depressed to uplifted within a matter of moments.
Many people that exercise in or out the gym like louder music that tends to affect the body to move with excitement. This should be one of the first methods to use when you need to quickly shift your energy from lethargic to upbeat without the intake of any chemicals.
Listening to music has shown to improve memory, the rate of healing, and overall performance in the gym*.
Lighting
Lighting seems like it may be insignificant when it comes to affects on the mood when working out, but many people feel depressed when lighting in a room is dull or indirectly placed to highlight your physical inappropriately. Many people feel that they’re not in the best shape because the photos they take show a blurry or soft appearance, which may not be the case.
Lighting is important for individuals that have gyms within their home and using it on a regular basis. Appropriate lighting should be placed carefully within the ceilings of a room that shines the light down from the top of your head to the floor. This creates the best silhouette that highlights the best aspects of your physique.
Fasted Training
Lifting weights or performing cardio on a empty stomach has been controversial since being discussed within the community over 10 years ago. Many people experience mixed results while exercising under a fasted state; some feel great energy without the presence of carbohydrates or protein in their stomach and others feel like their energy is too low to perform anything worthwhile.
The solution is to experiment with yourself and see how you feel while working out on an empty stomach. If your exercises are just as effective as the workouts in a fed state, you can probably use fasted training to boost your energy levels. Fasted training greatly increases mTOR and HGH hormone secretion, which are highly beneficial for recovery after workouts.
The Wrap Up
There are more effective ways to boost your energy in our out the gym without having to resort to stimulant supplements. Using more natural methods for increasing energy levels are simple to incorporate in your workout routine and will save you tons of money after a period of time. See which method works for you and experiment with each one to get the best results.
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