Early morning training

My preferred time to train now is in the morning, first thing. My alarm goes off at 0530, and I'm training by 0615/0630. It's taken a while to become accustomed to it but I seem to have got the hang of it now. With being in a job where I cannot guarantee when I will finish for the day, but where I can control a 0900 start time, the benefits of morning training are great. I thought I'd put together a few thoughts about my morning training - maybe it will help someone out there:

1) Make sure you get to bed on time the night before. I aim for 7 hours sleep so in bed by 2230. If I get to bed past 2300 I struggle the following morning

2) I have found that I can lift, run and sprint in the morning with one exception - deadlift. Squat, bench and overhead press all feel stronger in the morning - I am rested and have not suffered from hours of being sat down at my desk at work with bad posture. However I just find deadlift far too taxing on the CNS to lift in the morning. Deadlift is the one session I need to do in the evening.

3) Pre workout I have to eat something. When training with weights, I will have a banana and double espresso pre workout. If running I will have something a bit lighter - water and an apple. Training on empty just doesn't work for me.

4) As stated above training in the morning allows me to get training done and out of the way, and if I have to work late I don't miss a scheduled session. It also allows for a whole day of nutrition post workout, so I find my recovery between sessions is quite good.

5) I found being used to lifting first thing beneficial when I did a recent powerlifting meet, as I began lifting (albeit late morning) at 11am - had I only been used to training after work I may have found this a bit more difficult.

The list above is just a few of my thoughts. There will be plenty of people reading this who have tried early morning training and it doesn't work for them. Others will not have tried, because on the whole the consensus is to train later in the day. However sometimes you need to try something yourself to see if it works for you.