This romantic time of year will see an explosion of partner/couple workouts. As with all training programmes, they are great when used properly. BUT, if you’re not careful, they can do more damage than good! The key is using this time to support, motivate, and reconnect with your partner.
Our relationship ignited, grew, and turned into a blazing inferno– one that continues to burn brighter everyday – through our training sessions together. There are so many benefits to training including massive increases in strength, endurance, and power. The beautiful thing is, you can strengthen your connection, sexual endurance, and power of your passion through training.
Sound good? … Keep reading and we’ll show you how. Before we get to the good stuff, it’s important that we understand any potential pitfalls, plus the strategies you can use to keep your workouts fun and effective.
People have different levels of fitness
It can be very demotivating if your partner is a lot fitter than you. You turn up on day 1 and your partner starts the session with a super intense battlerope/burpee warmup. 2 mins in and you’re ready for the hospital – Not Good! It can be hard enough building the confidence to join the gym; feelings of vulnerability will be peaking, you don’t want your partner being the person to make this worse by completely destroying you. The positive thing is, you can improve your partners confidence by setting up something simple and effective. Use this as an opportunity to learn new exercises and have fun.
Feedback can be taken as criticism
Just like your partner being a ‘terrible passenger’ on car journeys. It’s not so much what you say, but how you say it. Any good fitness coach will always use positive language patterns to get the best out of their clients. Talk to your partner like crap and guess what… they’re not going to like it! You’re job is to support and motivate. Encourage them, lift them up, the results will be amazing.
The power dynamic in your relationship isn’t great for training together
Some couples simply won’t do well in a 1:1 training session. You’ll find yourselves getting angry and not enjoying the workout, even if you’ve applied the 2 above points. If that is the case, DON’T WORRY, you can still get all the incredible benefits we’re discussing by outsourcing the control of the session to a fitness coach or class instructor. Workout together while a professional takes you through a properly programmed session that you can both enjoy at your own level #winning.Now we know what to avoid, let’s talk about the AMAZING benefits
Increased Sexual Attraction
When you exercise you create physical arousal that mirrors sexual arousal quite closely – increased testosterone, elevated body temperature, sweating, and a racing heart rate for example. Sharing these physical effects with a partner can increase feelings of attraction and lust. It’s also a perfect opportunity to show your body off and what it can do.
Ideas
Even the most knowledgeable of exercisers can get stuck in a rut – you might favour the same exercises or workouts, dislike styles of training that you know are beneficial but you just can’t face them, or you’ve just simply run out of ideas. Getting a different perspective and new ideas is great for training motivation and progression. As long as it’s something you both agree on and the exercises you choose help to meet your goals. You dictate the content of one session, then let your partner dictate the next.
Boost Your Emotional Bond
Exercising releases chemical messengers such as endorphins. These messengers promote feelings of euphoria and relaxation that help you lose your inhibitions. You’ll be much more likely to talk about your feelings and share ideas with your partner. This will help to bring you both closer and better connect with each other. Regularly training with a partner also increases ‘mimicry’ – the phenomenon of matching body language and non-verbal communication. Those who mimic tend to have stronger emotional bonds.
Healthy Competition
You or your workout partnermight never mention it, but we guarantee there’s a bit of healthy competition between you both – no one wants to be bested by their partner.Alternatively, you might even plan a competition between you both, agreeing the prize in advance (we’ll leave that to your imagination of course). Competitions need to be fair – you could see who can run the furthest in 30 minutes, burn most calories in 45 minutes, complete a circuit in the fastest time, or even see who can squat the most relative to your body weight. Competition is great for motivation and progress. You don’t need to be perfectly matched for fitness to work out a fair competition between you – just have fun and use your imagination.
Motivation and Support
Not only do you feel more accountable when training with your partner, when you actually get in the gym you’ve got a perfect motivational coach. Your partner becomes your trainer – pushing you to work harder and providing all of the positive feedback you need to boost productivity. Approaching your session as a team will definitely improve motivation – it’s you two against the gym.
Nutritional Support
A well executed nutrition plan can make or break you achieving your body goals. It can provide all of the nutrients and energy you need to train hard, and reigning in the calories can help you find an energy deficit that helps the fat melt away. It’s not very often you’ll start a new exercise program and not at least try to improve what you eat. If you exercise together, you can help each other out by having healthy meals together too. You can banish the sweet treats from the house and ensure that neither of you stray from your plan. Agree which meals and types of foods you both like, and form a meal plan around it.
Your relationship is like a muscle
Without working at your relationship by regularly pushing its boundaries and exposing it to new stimulus (training), your relationship will become weak and uncomfortable. The longer this remains unchecked, the harder it becomes to start building again.Our biggest advice to all clients is ‘Start Now’! No matter how much damage has been done, you will be amazed at how quickly you can get back on track with some focused effort. Work hard, and your relationship will grow to be stronger and more dynamic than you ever thought possible! The human body is the most sophisticated machine in the known universe and capable of the most incredible physical feats. Share this experience with your partner and you will build a foundation strong enough to last a lifetime.
