Working out with your gym buddy is the best feeling you could ever have. Whether you are a seasoned athlete returning to the gym or a total beginner, you will eventually lose the desire to go to the gym. There are many reasons why you might find it difficult to maintain your momentum or regularly show up.
The good news is that you can boost your likelihood of consistently showing up and working out if you have a workout partner who pushes you to hit up the gym daily and motivates you to cross your physical boundaries.
Together, you’ll communicate updates, take responsibility, encourage each other, and mark accomplishments. Working out with your partners is an excellent way to stay committed to the gym and be disciplined.
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Why should you get a workout partner?
According to Deborah Feltz, PhD, a distinguished professor of kinesiology at Michigan State University, having one person who knows your goals and checks in with a quick “Did you get your workout in?” can increase your chances of sticking to a routine if you can’t exercise at the same time because you’re in different time zones. You can choose to do that by sending a daily SMS to a friend who lives far away, posting to a Facebook accountability group, or even telling your sister about your Apple Watch activity.
Once you get your perfect gym partner you are all set to achieve your fitness goals. You can challenge each other to achieve certain goals through healthy competition. Make a challenge for yourself and your friend and take the challenge as an advantage to achieving your fitness goals.
You and your companion might alternate choosing your workouts or the training session’s focus; for example, you might decide one session would be solely dedicated to glutes, while your friend decides to do an at-home ab workout the following time you work out together.
The most important factor about getting a gym partner is their energy and determination should match yours. If you get a partner that likes to skip more or doesn’t like to go to the gym it will make you slack as well. You need to get a gym or workout partner that is as determined as you to stay fit. Otherwise, a sluggish partner night makes your routine slack as well. You surely can motivate the other person but you can’t do their workout for them.
1. Ask Reliable Friends and Co-Workers
If you have close friends, coworkers, or family members who are committed to exercising regularly and are currently active, think about asking if you can join them. Exercise with friends who are already pursuing a healthy lifestyle rather than placing pressure or stress on a relationship with someone you know who is not as committed to working out as you are.
The perfect gym buddy can help you stay motivated even when you reach plateaus and feel like quitting up reverting to your old habits. You can retrain yourself to be disciplined and in control of your body at all times while learning how to push yourself to your physical boundaries with the correct workout partner.
2. Make your significant other your Gym Partner
Why is this not under the friends section? Because when you make your partner your gym partner, you have the double motivation to commit to working out. To keep yourself fit and to look to to them. Although the looking good part is unnecessary, who doesn’t want to look attractive to their partner?
Also, this can also count for the quality time that you both generally miss out on due to heavy schedules. The fact that both of you grow stronger, and fitter together is itself a huge feat. There are plenty of methods for our single brothers and sisters out there in the world. Why look anywhere else when you already have a partner? Talk to your partner about it and make it happen!
3. Find a Virtual Workout Partner
Joining an online group is another approach to meeting a workout partner. You can select a workout partner that matches your goals, preferred workout styles, and the type of equipment you plan to utilise via online communities, message boards, or even downloaded applications.
Even if you don’t have a fitness buddy in the gym with you, you can gain inspiration and motivation by finding a virtual fitness buddy. You can also look for local meetups and events to identify potential gym partners nearby using virtual workout applications and internet communities.
4. Find Your Workout Partner at Your Gym
If you currently go to the gym frequently, consider meeting people and looking for a gym buddy there. If you frequently run into the same person while exercising, think about striking up a discussion and getting to know that person.
Depending on your fitness and training objectives, it will become simpler for you to ask other individuals to work out with you or to spot you the more often you see them.
5. Make Your Pet Your Fitness Partner
Who says your fitness partner has to be a person? Your pets can also be your excellent fitness partner. According to a study, persons who regularly take their dogs for walks are more likely to be in better physical shape than those who go for walks with other people.
Also, the guilt of giving someone puppy-dog eyes could be worse than the guilt of rejecting a buddy. In a Purdue University study, participants who got an email about the value of taking their dogs for walks increased their time spent playing with their dogs from 10 to 80 minutes. When asked why the participants responded that they were worried about their dog’s health and had not thought about the advantages they were receiving. People, puppy love is a very strong incentive!
6. Find a Gym Buddy Through an App or Message Board
Use message boards and forums devoted to fitness and certain forms of exercise to locate others who share your interests and prefer to exercise in a group or with a partner rather than alone. You probably already have a virtual following of people to ask if you are an active forum user.
Finding a virtual friend is a supplementary choice. Applications like Workout Buddy and Fitness Buddy can assist you in finding the ideal companion, sharing exercise and nutrition plans, and determining whether your caloric intake is appropriate for your programme.
7. Turn Your Long Distance Gym freak Friend into Your Gym Buddy
Do you have a friend with whom you would frequently work out if you both lived in the same zip code? Now more than ever, it’s possible to keep up a fitness partnership even if you live far apart. And that long-distance relationship (in which you maintain accountability through texting, FaceTime during exercises, or by joining the same streaming class) can be just as successful as an in-person get-together.
Conclusion
Getting a perfect gym partner is tough, to be honest. The one thing you need to remember is you’re both working together on the goal of being fit as per your requirements. Motivating each other should happen through healthy competition in minds. If this gets too much, your friendship might get affected. Remember you’re partners or friends first and fitness freaks later.
Most people end up leaving the gym or workouts after a while because self-motivation can only do a certain limit. External stimuli or in the case competitive plus friendly forces make us consider the other person and push us forward to do something we usually wouldn’t do if it was left to just us. Get a gym partner and stay motivated to stay fit!