What if a few simple tweaks to your morning routine could instantly boost your muscle growth? 

Not long ago, my mornings were a mess.

I’d wake up late, scroll my phone, then rush out the door with whatever breakfast I could grab. My energy sucked, my workouts felt weak, and my muscles weren’t recovering very well.

But after making 6 small changes to my morning, my gains drastically improved — along with my energy and productivity. And the same can happen for you once you implement this morning routine, starting with your wake-up time.

#1: Wake Up At Sunrise

When you work out, your muscles sustain small amounts of damage.

But at night is when your body flips a switch, entering its most anabolic state to repair and grow new muscle. That’s why even a single night of poor sleep has been shown to negatively affect muscle recovery, and why multiple long-term studies have found that consistently poor sleep dramatically slows down muscle growth and fat loss.

So even without training harder or eating more protein, just making this simple tweak to your morning routine: improving your sleep can get you better results.

Understanding Your Circadian Rhythm

And the key to this has to do with your circadian rhythm.

Your body runs on a 24-hour schedule called the circadian rhythm. When you stay in sync with daylight — going to bed earlier and waking up closer to sunrise — you help your brain regulate hormones like melatonin (for sleep) and cortisol (for waking up).

Melatonin is your body's natural sleep hormone.

When the sun sets and your environment gets dark, melatonin production accelerates, signaling your body to wind down and prepare for deep, restorative sleep.

The more consistently you produce melatonin at the same time each night, the more effectively you’ll cycle into the deep sleep stages that give your muscles the highest rates of recovery.

So how do we boost melatonin via your morning routine? Maybe we just pop in a supplement?

Actually, the best way to ramp up melatonin is by getting morning sunlight. 

You’ve probably heard advice about dimming the lights in your home and reducing screen time at night, which is important. But here’s something really cool: your nightly melatonin production actually begins in the morning.

It’s why the morning routine of high performers like Ronaldo and LeBron James begins religiously at sunrise.

Even billionaire Richard Branson sleeps with his blinds open to let natural light wake him up. When you tweak your morning routine such that you expose your eyes to daylight early in the morning, it sends a powerful signal to your brain’s internal clock to ramp up your melatonin around bedtime and reach its peak in the middle of the night — exactly what you need for deep, restorative sleep.

Once you get this right in your morning routine, it feels like a cheat code.

Even self-proclaimed “night owls” have been shown to benefit from aligning their sleep schedules with their body’s natural rhythm.

Our body wasn’t built for late nights. It was built for daylight. 

Improving Your Morning Routine Starts With Sleeping Earlier

But waking up this early isn’t easy. Trust me, I failed horribly when implementing it to my morning routine at first.

“Hustle culture” told me to grind harder and sleep less.

So I thought I could just wake up at 6 a.m. without changing my bedtime. 

Bad idea.

Research consistently shows that for most people, 7+ hours of quality sleep is crucial. Some athletes swear by 8, 9, or even 10. 

After some trial and error with my morning routine, I found that my sweet spot is 8 hours.

This meant that if I wanted to wake up with the sun at 6 a.m., I needed to cut out my Netflix binges and wind down in bed by 9:30 p.m.

I also set my phone across the room, so when my alarm goes off, I have to physically get up to turn it off instead of snoozing it in bed.

Then, I head outside or by the window to soak up some morning light — even if it’s cloudy out, the rays will still peek through. 

But if your sun doesn’t rise till later, you can still replicate this effect during your morning routine by investing in a light that provides at least 10,000 lux of brightness and filters out as much UV light as possible.

Here's a link to one I'd recommend.

But once that’s done, the next thing I do during my morning routine is weigh myself. 

#2: Weigh In

If you know how to actually use it, a daily morning weigh-in during your morning routine is one of the best ways to track your muscle building progress. 

But timing and consistency are key. 

When you weigh yourself at the same time every morning — right after waking up and after using the bathroom — you eliminate most of the random fluctuations in body weight. 

My weight easily fluctuates by five to seven pounds throughout the day depending on what I’ve eaten, how much water I’ve had, or even just how much sodium was in my last meal. 

But in the morning? 

That’s my true baseline. 

Tracking this during your morning routine gives you immediate feedback. 

• If you're trying to build muscle: You should see your morning weight slowly creep up by about half a pound per week. If it’s not? You’re probably not eating enough. 
• If you're trying to lose fat while building muscle (body recomp): Your weight should stay relatively stable or drop slightly every week. If it’s not? You’re probably eating too much. 

But the best part about weighing yourself in the morning during your morning routine is that it’s easy to stay consistent.

There’s this concept called habit stacking — pairing a new habit with something you already do automatically. 

In the morning, I wake up, use the bathroom, and then brush my teeth.

All I had to do was pair brushing my teeth with weighing in and logging it into my BuiltWithScience+ app and boom — it’s now become automatic.

This part of my morning routine takes 5 seconds, but that small habit compounds over time and gives me the momentum to carry out the next part of my morning routine, which in my case is … caffeine! 

#3: Time Your Caffeine

Caffeine is one of the best tools you can use to boost focus, mood, and even your workouts, which I’ll talk about later.

But timing it right is key.

Some experts suggest delaying caffeine for 90 to 120 minutes after waking. The idea is that your cortisol levels naturally peak about 30-45 minutes after waking up, and adding caffeine on top of that could overstimulate your body and lead to a mid-afternoon crash — which, for many people, just means another shot of caffeine.

But here’s the thing: the research doesn’t actually support this. And in my experience, I haven’t noticed a difference.

Have It As Early As Possible

Personally, I prefer to have my caffeine as early as possible.

That’s because for most people, caffeine has a half-life of about 6 hours. So if you have an energy drink with 200 milligrams of caffeine at 2 p.m., by 8 p.m., your body still has 100 milligrams circulating in its system, and by midnight, you’d still have around 50 milligrams. 

That’s basically like drinking a cup of green tea while trying to fall asleep. 

So for me personally, here's how my morning routine goes. Shortly after waking at 6 a.m., I’ll have an Earl Grey tea, which has about 50 milligrams of caffeine — just enough to help me bang out a couple hours of deep work.

By 9 am, I’ll have a scoop of our Built With Science pre-workout which contains 180mg of caffeine but also an added ingredient called L-Theanine which helps smooth out the energy boost and prevents the hard crash you usually get from taking that amount of caffeine on its own.

After that, I avoid caffeine completely.

For my body, any caffeine after 12 pm, even if it’s just a green tea or diet coke, makes it far more difficult for me to get the quality sleep I need.

Measuring Sleep Quality

But while we've spent a lot of time talking about sleep quality and what effects it, we haven’t talked about how to measure it.

Well … one way to measure sleep quality is to do what scientists did, and track your nocturnal erections.

Yes. This is a real study.

Scientists actually strapped devices onto people while they slept … to monitor their … biological enthusiasm.

And according to the data, the guys who got better sleep had better results down there, while the ones with poor sleep … let’s just say things weren’t looking so great.

Even biohacking YouTuber, Bryan Johnson, claims that a healthy male should have 3-5 erections per night lasting a total of two and a half hours.

Now, unless you’re planning to monitor that somehow, a more realistic way to track your sleep quality is with a smart ring or band that gives you a sleep score.

But honestly, you’ll just know based on how you feel as you're waking up and especially during a morning workout.

#4: Workout

Which is arguably the best time of day to work out. 

Before YouTube, I used to work a standard 9 to 5 job, and every day, I told myself I’d work out after work. But half of the time I’d either be too exhausted from the day and just make an excuse to skip it, or something unexpected would come up. 

By making training a part of your morning routine, you essentially guarantee it happens before life can throw you any curveballs.

Plus, you’ll ride that post-workout high for hours, which can make your day more productive and your mood more stable.

Benefits Of Making Training A Part Of Your Morning Routine

But the true benefits of slotting a workout into your morning routine happen at night. 

A lot of people who struggle with getting good sleep experience a “phase delay” in their circadian rhythm. 

This is when your 24-hour internal clock is shifted a bit later, making it harder to get to bed early and harder to wake up around sunrise. 

But recent research has found morning exercise leads to a circadian “phase advance,” meaning your internal clock shifts earlier and drastically improves sleep quality.

And it didn’t matter if participants were “early birds” or “night owls”.

This effect was seen across the board.

Now, if you’re used to training later in the day, you might notice that your lifts feel heavier and your performance takes a hit when you first switch to morning workouts.

That’s completely normal.

Your body temperature and neuromuscular activation are lower in the morning, which can make you feel sluggish. But the good news is, this is just temporary. 

While pre-workout caffeine during your morning routine can help minimize the initial drop in performance, your body will quickly adapt, and in a few weeks, you’ll likely be lifting just as much — if not more — than you were in the afternoon, especially once your sleep schedule is dialed in. 

But if you’re someone who just genuinely prefers working out later in the day, that’s fine, any kind of morning exercise can be beneficial. Even if it’s just a short walk.

And the benefit of a morning run is it’s a guaranteed way to make sure your day doesn’t get any worse. 

But either before or after your morning exercise, you’ll want to fuel your body with a proper muscle-building breakfast during your morning routine.

#5: Eat A High-Protein Breakfast

Your muscles are in a constant tug of war between breaking down and building up.

Ideally, we want to tip the scales in favor of muscle growth.

But here’s the issue. When you go a long time without eating protein, muscle breakdown starts to outpace muscle repair.

Now, while getting 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep is great, once you wake up, it means you’ve gone a long time without protein, potentially putting your body into every gym bro’s worst nightmare: a catabolic state. 

I actually had a friend in high school who was so paranoid about this that he’d set an alarm for 3:00 AM every single night just to chug a protein shake.

Was it overkill? Probably. But was he jacked? Also yes. 

And turns out, there’s actual research that in a way, supports this.

Scientists tested two groups of lifters. Both ate the same amount of total daily protein. One group spread their protein evenly across breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The other group ate most of their protein at dinner with very little at breakfast.

And while both groups got stronger, the high-protein breakfast group actually saw slightly bigger gains in strength and lean muscle mass. 

So skipping or skimping on breakfast could mean leaving muscle gains on the table. 

How Much Protein Is Enough?

But you often see celebrities like The Rock and Mark Wahlberg devouring massive protein-rich breakfasts. 

You start adding it up and realize this dude is pushing over 100 grams of protein before most people even wake up. 

But how much is actually necessary? 

For years, gym bros believed anything over 30 grams of protein in one meal is wasted. 

Well, scientists recently put this to the test. They compared 25 grams versus 100 grams of protein in a single meal. Surprisingly, muscle protein synthesis kept increasing, so even at 100 grams in a single meal, your body can still use the extra protein to build muscle.

But keep in mind eating 4x as much protein in a meal provided just a 30% boost in protein synthesis throughout the whole day.

So my recommendation is to aim for at least 20-30 grams of high-quality protein in your breakfast during your morning routine, then spread the rest of your daily intake across a few meals throughout the day. 

By the way, here's the best way to use protein for muscle gain.

But what if you prefer working out fasted? 

Well, research shows that if you’re hungry, your performance suffers.

So if you wake up hungry, even a small snack can help. If you’re not hungry, no problem. Just make sure to have a high-protein meal within an hour after your workout. 

How I Get Protein In During My Morning Routine

But here’s what I personally do. 

If I’m training first thing in the morning, I’ll have a banana with 1 scoop of my Built With Science whey protein powder. Including what's in the protein powder, there are only 5 ingredients in my entire breakfast and 29 grams of fast digesting protein.

That's it. It allows my stomach to quickly digest the food and give me an immediate boost of energy. 

After my workout is when I have my more satiating, slow digesting meal.

This is usually either oatmeal topped with half a scoop of Built With Science protein powder and greek yogurt, or a sourdough bread sandwich with 4 whole eggs.

Check out my budget-friendly high-protein, muscle-building meal plan here.

#6: Take A Cold Shower

But you may have noticed that nowhere in my morning routine did I talk about the water temperature of my showers. 

Cold exposure, whether it’s a cold shower or ice bath, is believed to be a game-changer for muscle recovery, metabolism, and looking really, really cool on Instagram. 

The bad news is that while cold exposure immediately after a workout actually does seem to help you recover quicker, it does so by blunting the full recovery process, leading to less muscle growth and strength. It also hasn’t been shown to do anything notable for fat loss.

So why do so many people love it? 

One reason is it definitely flips your nervous system into high gear. Heart rate spikes, adrenaline and dopamine shoot up, and you feel wide awake. 

For these reasons, I must admit I am a regular partaker in cold showers to naturally wake me up during my morning routine. But by cold showers I mean I take a really hot shower to warm up and then crank it cold for a few seconds and scream like a baby. 

TL;DR

• A few simple tweaks to your morning routine could drastically improve your gains, energy, and productivity. 
• First tweak to your morning routine: wake up at sunrise to better align with your circadian rhythm for longer, better-quality sleep. You’ll need to sleep earlier for this to happen. 
• Next, weigh yourself during your morning routine to track your muscle-building progress. 
• The third tweak to your morning routine is to have your caffeine as early as possible so you get the quality sleep you need at night.
• Slot in your workout during your morning routine so you won’t miss it. Other benefits include a post-workout high and better quality sleep at night.
• The fifth tweak to your morning routine is eating a high-protein breakfast. I recommend aiming for at least 20 to 30 grams in your breakfast, then spreading the rest throughout the day.
• Finally, you may wish to add cold showers into your morning routine to naturally wake you up.

My Complete Morning Routine

So, here's my entire morning routine laid out for you. 

• In bed by 9:30 pm, asleep by 10:00 pm
• Wake up at 6:00 am with morning daylight
• Weigh myself while brushing my teeth
• Earl grey tea + 1-2 hours of deep work
• Protein shake + banana + pre-workout caffeine
• Workout (weights or cardio)
• Post-workout high protein breakfast

There's no need to be a biohacking supervillain waking up at 4 am.

Try implementing even just one of the things I talked about in your morning routine, but more importantly, tweak it to see what actually works for you and your lifestyle. 

But if you'd like some help getting started, my new BuiltWithScience+ app will take care of all the guesswork for you. It’ll create your daily checklist, your weekly workouts, and your nutrition plan based on your goal. It’s even got a meal scanner where you can snap your breakfast and it’ll estimate and log all the ingredients and calories for you. 

Just like countless others have, simply follow what it tells you every day, and I guarantee you’ll get amazing results.

You can try it completely free for 2 weeks by clicking on the link below:

Click the button below to try the BWS+ app for 2 weeks, for free, no strings attached:

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Give it a shot, and I’ll see ya next time!