How to: Get Your Bike Ride in Before Work

Active young bikers with safety gears cycling on urban roadNot all of us are morning risers. For many of us, careful planning is required in getting your bike ride in before work. If not, hitting the snooze button is all too easy. The more you can get done on your morning to-do list the night before, the easier jumping out of bed will be the next day. Specifically, here are some of the routines you should start practicing the night before and in the morning.

Tips for Getting Your Bike Ride in Before Work

  • Hold yourself accountable – Few things have the power to motivate more than having ride buddies who will teasingly berate you for failing to show up and ride with them each morning. Don’t have an easy way to schedule this with friends? No problem, try joining a morning riding group through an app such as MeetUp.
  • Visualize your competition – If you can’t find a friend to bike with each morning, it can be useful to practice visualization. Your friend or competition doesn’t have to be working out for you to picture them doing so. Imagining them getting better while you’re sleeping can be enough motivation to get out of bed.
  • Lay your clothes out the night before – Whether you’re aware of it or not, choosing your outfit takes willpower. This is the reason Steve Jobs famously wore the same outfit every day. Laying your clothes out the night before not only removes this roadblock to going out, but it creates a feeling of cognitive dissonance if you fail to get up. We all naturally want our beliefs and actions to match. In this way, laying out our clothes then night before motivates us to follow through.
  • Go to bed early – Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and a better cyclist. Doesn’t have as good of a ring to it, but it’s equally true. Your body naturally wakes up once it’s had enough sleep. For adults, this is usually after about 8 hours. By going to bed 8 hours before you want to get up, you can ease the decision of getting out of bed the next day.

Working out in the morning gets easier once you establish habits that promote it. Remember that it’s a practice everyone struggles to keep up. Focus on how great you feel for the rest of the day after you champion your morning workout.

Joshua Bonnici is a cycling enthusiast and a San Diego personal injury attorney dedicated to bicycle safety and helping the victims of bicycle accidents.



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