Successful peoples morning routines.

I know many of you are ambitious, high achieving people. We hear a lot about successful peoples morning routines. I want to go over some of the ones out there and why we should not copy what someone else is doing. We also have to keep in mind that these routines we hear about might be exaggerated for the media or that we don’t have  the full picture. 

Successful peoples morning routines are written as something impressive and something we should strive for. As always we have to question how much of that is true / exaggerated. I want to bring some clarity to some of these successful people’s morning and exercise routines. 

Examples of successful people’s morning routines

Let’s start with a heavy hitter of a successful person. Barack Obama. Overall when I had a look he seemed to portray a pretty sound morning and exercise routine. However he would get about 5 hours of sleep.

This is not good of course. You have not rebooted your body and systems on just 5 hours of sleep. For someone who is under a lot of stress this should be priority number 1. Yes exercise will help you focus and manage stress better but exercise is a form of stress on the body. Exercise needs to be balanced with someone’s lifestyle. And should not be prioritised over sleep. We can survive on little sleep of course and if someone is performing well they are doing it despite of it not because of it. 

Next up is Mark Wahlberg. Again I feel the need to point out that I question what is being portrayed as his routine. I saw a clip of Mark and James Corden doing a thing about his exercise routine and how early it was. So it’s definitely being portrayed as quite extreme even if it’s as a joke. What I have come across is that he wakes up at 2.30 am, does two workouts in a day and goes to bed at 7.30 pm.

So according to this he is getting 7 hours of sleep which is not too bad but why change the day like that? Shift and night workers have a shorter life expectancy due to the disruption in our natural sleep patterns. Then he is doing two workouts in a day. I can’t say this is wrong or right, I don’t have enough information. I would like to know what is the intensity of the workout, what is the length of the workouts and what is the purpose? Let’s say someone does  20 min of cardio and 40 min of strength work back to back or at separate times it can be counted as two workouts. I would not say anything about it, if it fits in with the person’s life and goals. However quality over quantity is the phrase that comes to mind here. 

Another successful person’s morning routine is Jennifer Anistons. 

I have seen this written about on a few sites. 

She wakes up at 4.30 am on a workday. After some morning meditation she will head to her personal trainer, go for a 30 min spin, do a 40 min yoga and go back into the gym. 

So the first question is, is she getting 7-9 hour of sleep? If yes then I have nothing to say about waking up at 4.30 am. The exercise routine sounds excessive to me. A 30 min spin and  40 min of yoga is all good to me or gym and yoga I would be fine with. (perhaps not for everyone though, would depend on someone’s circumstances and needs) The other question is, how many times a week is she doing this? 

Other myths about exercise.

I have seen many famous people say their trick to their exercise is to keep the body guessing. This is not a good trick for progress. It might give you stimulation and variety to keep things interesting. For strength, agility, balance and mobility this is not a good trick. In short the body needs repetition to adapt and become good at an exercise.. Example to perform a single leg squat you need all the above. If you keep changing you won’t progress as quickly since the body won’t get the practice it needs. Which in long terms will slow down your progress. You might want to do certain exercises because they are specific to a goal you are working towards. Repetition is what you need in this case a swell. 

If you are not sore after working out you have not worked hard enough. This is not true of course and not something that is part of successful peoples morning routines. You may here a comment about it but its not a metric to go by.

We often get sore when we try a new exercise or form of activity or one we haven’t done in a while. But if the load is right you will settle in pretty soon and won’t be that sore. It is not something to strive for. And is not a way to measure the quality of a workout. 

Hopefully this debunking of successful peoples morning routines help you realise more is not always better and sleep is a BIG factor.