Be the first to know and let us send you an email when MyFitness Club Sippy Downs posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Did you know we appreciate your loyalty as our valued members. If you refer a friend, colleague or family member who joins we will we will give you 2 weeks FREE membership as a thank you!
4 reasons why you should train with friends
More motivation and no lame excuses. It is a pleasant Saturday afternoon and you are lazing on the couch. Your favorite TV series is just coming on. Sounds like the perfect excuse to skip today’s training, right? Not if you are training with a partner, it doesn’t! Regular workout times with your friends help you to stick it out and finish your routine. The chances of you choosing your couch over your training session are much lower in this case. It would be pretty embarrassing if you cancelled on your friends because you didn’t feel like it, right? But don’t just take my word for it: psychologists at Stony Brook University in New York have found that the exercise habits of friends and family members affect personal motivation. Evidence showed that the motivation of the people closest to us has a positive influence on us and encourages us to do more sports.
There are plenty of “training moments” that would be really funny if you had someone to laugh with. One way of increasing the fun factor is to come up with new ideas on how you can modify your exercises or make your runs together more interesting. For example, instead of just doing a plank challenge, try one with partner hand slaps. Or throw a ball back and forth while doing sit-ups. There are lots of ways you can shake up your training plan — but the craziest and funniest ideas will come to you when you brainstorm together with a friend. These change-ups will make the time fly and before you know it, an hour will have passed. And the best thing is that you won’t look at the clock once.
When you feel close to giving up, a training partner can be all the more important because they can help you build up your motivation again. A fitness challenge among friends can help you push each other and stretch your limits. In England, women were surveyed on their exercise behavior; the study found that 64% of women who train with their best friends were more likely to push their workouts to the limit than those who exercised on their own. Does this mean you are doomed if you can’t find time to work out together? Hardly.
Did you know that more than 40% of participants drop a fitness course shortly after it begins if they attend on their own? But if they work out with a friend, the dropout rate decreases to 6%. This suggests that one of the best reasons for exercising with friends is the social interaction. People who train together form a group identity and no longer feel alone. When you accomplish something on your own, of course, it’s amazing. Sharing your successes with your friends who know how hard you’ve worked to conquer your inner couch potato feels even better. And if things don’t go as planned? Who cares? A pat on the back from a friend can make things seem half as bad. These simple acts create a connection between people. And it is this kind of experience that bonds people together and makes their friendship that much stronger.
