Maybe you’ve heard that evening sweat sessions could bring on insomnia or that evening exercisers are less likely to stick with a workout. But sometimes waking up before the sun rises sounds about as pleasant as getting pink eye.
Plus, nighttime sweat sessions might be your only window to exercise, especially if your job involves super-early hours, or you’re simply not a morning person. For those of us who consistently deny the lure of the couch after work and make it to the club (the health club) in the evening, there are certain things only “P.M.” exercisers understand.
1. We Use The Gym As Excuse To Skip Happy Hour
“Sorry, I can’t come, I my CrossFit class starts at 8!” or “I can’t, I have an important date with my barbell”. To be honest, we really just don’t want to go out. Plus, we do have to get to the gym. Enjoy your happy hour while we get swole.
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2. But We Know That The Gym Doesn’t Always Cut It As An Excuse
How many times can we bail on our coworkers to deadlift? According to them, none. According to us, an infinite amount of times. So we meet our cubicle mates somewhere in the middle. Half the time we’re honest and tell them we’re about to get our sweat on. The other half, we make up fake sh*t to do to avoid the wrath of the over-social work wife (i.e. “I can’t! Sorry! The neighbor’s dog needs walking”).
3. We CAN’T Go Home Between Work and The Gym
Nothing ruins our plans for a good training session quite like going home and remembering how beautiful the couch is and how wonderful it feels to sink into that puppy. If we do have to go home between work and the gym for an even later workout than we typically clock, it’s not unusual to find us chugging Red Bull, overdoing it on the pre-workout, or just eating espresso beans by the handful.
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4. We Know Working Out Is Cheaper Than Therapy
After a long and stressful day at the office, this is our go-to way to get out that built up energy and stress, and show a bad day who’s boss. For example, spilled your coffee on your crisp white? Ran into your ex and found out they’re engaged? Got yelled at by the boss in front of your office-nemesis? Lifting heavy things and putting them back down is a sure-fire way for us to end the day feeling in control, powerful, and way more badass than either our boss or our ex’s new fiance. So there.
5. We Accidentally Wrinkle All Our Work Gear… Every Time
That expensive blazer Mom bought us for work? Wrinkled. The crisp white shirt we were hoping to get two wears out of? Yep, fail. Whether it’s because all the hangers are used up, because we negligently stuffed all our workout gear into the locker, or because we’re too tired to give a darn about the state of some slacks, it is inevitable that our work clothes take the brunt of our evening training sessions.
6. We Known Dehydration Intimately
Ten minutes into our workout and we’re chugging water faster than someone downs beer at a frat-party. Drinking enough water at work to be perfectly hydrated for a late night 20 minute EMOM is a serious struggle. We drink enough, and we end up making trips to the bathroom on 15 fifteen minute intervals. We don’t drink enough during the day, and our gym session is interrupted with “cow tongue”, cramps, and a jacked up heart rate. Even those of us who have been night-time gym-familiars are still trying to find the perfect balance of peeing-their-pants/chewing-their-own-spit. What can we say? The struggle is real.
7. We LOVE Dinner
P.M. gym-sessions come with the best pre-workout snack (okay, meal) ever: DINNER. Someone pass the protein and carbs, because we’re ready to maximize the gains we just worked our butts off for by stuffing our faces with chicken and sweet potatoes… or steak and potatoes… or pasta with meat sauce… or waffles with chicken.
8. Our Post-Workout Snack Is On-Point
Life happens. That means sometimes we don’t crawl into the gym until after family-meal time or that required meal with a client (or your mother-in-law). But we’re so used to eating the world’s best post-workout meal that you can bet our post-sweat snack is envy-worthy.
9. Our Briefcase (Or Other Work Bag) Is The Size of A Literal Suitcase
Between a second pair of shoes, a set of workout gear, wrist-wraps, knee-sleeves, an extra set of socks, some protein bars for when desperate times call for desperate measures, and a sweat-suit to pull on when we’re done, our “day pack” looks more like a “weekend pack.” Look, we know it’s annoying that we have to lug our suitcase-sized bag onto the subway, into the coffee shop for our morning caffeine, and into work with us (yes, it’s true, us city exercisers have it especially rough on the bag-front), but our training takes priority over your annoyance that we’ve overpacked. Sorry not sorry.
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10. We Reward Ourselves…
… with a shower. There’s nothing like the glorious feeling of hot water pouring over you as you suds up your hair and lather up the body wash. Post-workout pre-bed showers are the magic that gets us through.
11. On The RARE Occasion That We Do Work Out In The Morning… We Hate Life
And by RARE I mean REALLY RARE occasion that we hit the gym for an early pump, everything feels so much harder because our body is in shock.
Featured image: @kelskiel on Instagram
