THE 5 KEY BENEFITS OF HITTING THE GYM WITH A WORKOUT PARTNER
Do you hit the gym with a workout partner or are your sessions a solitary affair?
Are your running sesh’s just you, alone, hitting the pavement step after step?
Or do you love having someone by your side, encouraging you to push harder, faster, longer?
Working out with a partner offers a host of benefits that can supercharge your results and make the experience more enjoyable. Here are our top 5!
1. Inspires greater accountability and consistency
To supercharge results requires consistency and effort. Yet, particularly on our down days, it’s not difficult to convince ourselves that one skipped session won’t hurt. Lounging on the couch or binging on our fav shows can be seductive. Yet, a gym membership doesn’t get you fit; showing up and working out does.
Unsurprisingly, research in various fields has proven what commonsense suggests; accountability makes the difference.
Simply put, “Accountability is a tool used frequently in many settings to encourage people to follow a particular course of action.” And it works. A 2016 study found that accountability “positively and significantly affect[s]… performance.”
Being accountable to another person, for example, a workout partner, is smart. Shared accountability between yourself and your partner should include consistency; showing up and working to an expected level. No slacking allowed. The knowledge that someone else is relying on you, too, makes it more difficult to hurl excuses to not show up or not push hard enough.
Tip: To maximize your results, focus on the direction and goals you each wish to achieve. Shame, fear, or duress should not be used to “motivate”. (They have the opposite effect)
2. The right partner is motivating!
We all rely on friends or coaches, at least occasionally, for support; for inspiration when we’re feeling low. Others can act like the light that sparks our inner furness, providing the motivation we need to change and grow. In this way, a workout partner can help you transform your body and health.
But, there are actions that positively and negatively effect motivation and performance…
Your workout partner should:
— Help to build your self-confidence so you believe you can achieve your goals
— Promote positive emotions
— Help you to identify your values and connect them to your workout and health goals
Your workout partner should not:
— Encourage constant competition (for best results only “compete” with yourself)
— Enforce arbitrary rules (every practice you agree upon should make sense and have a role to play)
— Press unclear, unachievable or constantly changing goals (clarity, ability, and predictability matter)
— Provide negative feedback (focus instead on finding gaps where performance could be improved)
With the right approaches, your workout partner can help give flight to your motivation. In this way, you can push each other to achieve your goals, and faster.
3. Makes new workouts easier and safer
Adventurousness often spikes when we’re with a friend. Their support and encouragement increases the chances that we, too, will throw caution to the wind. This can push us from a stagnant workout and into something new.
Plus, a partner can encourage safer training. Having someone to spot for you in the weight’s room means you can push out the last few reps. They can watch your posture, providing pointers to protect your form. Their objectivity can identify ways to gain greater results.
A fresh drill, a new weight program, or an unusual workout can beat boredom, increase enjoyment, enhance motivation, and train overlooked areas. It’s a wonderful way to supercharge your results, while lowering perceived struggle and potential injury.
4. Increases the length and quality of the workout
Have you ever stepped off the treadmill or bike before your allotted time because, if you’re honest, you couldn’t motivate yourself for the last push?
Or have you decided that a 30-minute sesh will suffice instead of your usual hour because you didn’t sleep well the night before or because you’ve caught a case of the “can’t be bothered’s”?
You’re not alone… Although, being alone makes this decision easier. After all, no-one will know, right?
With a workout partner it is more difficult to quit. There’s a good chance that on your withered days, they’ll be filled with mojo and motivation. They’ll propel you past your artificial limit. On the flip side, when they feel tired and uninspired, you’ll be there to push them along.
Working as a team, you can increase the length and quality of your workouts to achieve your goals in a faster timeframe.
5. Heightens enjoyment
Pushing through a workout can be tough, but pushing through with a fellow warrior feels like a shared burden, a lightened load. There is greater joy in a shared experience. If you’ve even wondered why spin classes with a screaming instructor or aerobics sessions with everlasting squats are possible, this may be it!
Apart from the shared tribal struggle, the right workout partner can:
— encourage you to believe you’ve “got this”
— provide comic relief
— pull you over the hump, with the resulting joy of accomplishment
— give you someone to talk to
If you’re outside, company will help you to feel safer, leading to less stress and greater happiness.
How to supercharge your workouts?
Because your chances of a better workout come with company, these sessions provide an opportunity to push harder, faster, and longer. To allow your body to do just that, science-backed supplementation makes sense.
HyperLoad, our explosive pre-workout supplement, will set your workouts on fire…
Alphasize® alpha-gpc, Astragin®, beta-alanine, betaine anhydrous, L-citrulline malate 2:1, Nitrosigine®, N-methyl tyramine HCL, S7™, theobromine, grapefruit seed extract, caffeine anhydrous and dicaffeine malate enhance blood flow, promote thermogenesis, increase focus and motivation, deliver oxygen and nutrients to your muscles, provide long-lasting energy so you can crush your workouts, and more.
That’s why people like Dori C say, “Love the taste! And the energy it gives me to train is great. I’ve been using this one for a year now and it works every time. I never crash.”
Grab your HyperLoad and get ready to pulverize your workouts!
The Workout Partner Take-away
The right workout partner will inspire greater accountability and consistency, infuse motivation, make new approaches easier, increase the length and quality of your sessions, and heighten enjoyment for both of you.
When combined, your exercise program becomes more “stick-able” and your results are switched to superdrive. Add in HyperLoad and you’ll feel and look transformed in next to no time! We can’t wait to hear about your results.