How to Set a Positive Trajectory for Your Pain
At the beginning of my career as a physical therapist, I used to try and fix people’s pain immediately. Providing them with that magic exercise, stretch, or hands on technique…
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You are in the middle of a deep sleep when all of a sudden your 5:00am alarm goes off. You turn it off and lay for a moment in your dark room in your comfortable, warm bed, and ask yourself:
“Should I just go back to bed?”
The dreaded moment has come yet again. The moment where you contemplate whether or not you’re just going to roll over and go back to sleep or if you’re going to get up and workout like you said you were going to.
It’s a battle we all face. Sometimes, we overcome the temptations and hop out of bed. We workout and spend the rest of the day floating on the high of the workout and the satisfaction that we did what we said we were going to do.
Sometimes, we give ourselves some more sleep and justify it as being beneficial for your rest and recovery. Then we feel guilty throughout the day because we slept in.
Only to wake up the next morning and fight the battle another time. It’s an endless cycle that we all want to get a grip on because we know that working out in the morning will improve our lives in multiple different ways.
In my years of battling this moment, there is 1 strategy that proves to be repeatedly successful: meeting with others to workout
Schedule morning workouts with others to help you get out of bed
If you text your friend the night before and say: “Do you want to meet at Lee Street beach for a 5 mile run tomorrow morning at 6:00am?” and they agree.
You bet your ass when the alarm goes off at 5:00am you’ll spring out and start getting ready. You’ve got another person keeping you accountable for your workout.
This strategy works wonders and I’ve been implementing it with my friend Danny for a handful of workouts during the week this summer.
If you don’t have a training buddy, TRY TO FIND ONE!
This is easier said than done of course. But try and find someone or some group to be accountable to that’ll help get you out of bed and onto the pavement.
If you’re a runner, check out the Evanston Running Club to meet some new people
If you’re a triathlete, check out Precision Multisport and join in on some group swims, bikes, runs, or bricks.
If you do something else, find a group and start socializing. It’s better with others!
Cheers to summer training with friends and beating the morning sleep demons!
Your best is yet to come!
Dr. Michael
