Why Workout with a Friend? Guest Post!

Have any of you experienced a difference in your workouts when you’re with other people compared to when you’re alone? I definitely have! Once I started teaching classes, I was especially motivated to push myself beyond my own edge in an effort to really make others sweat and burn. I do more and push harder both when I’m teaching a class and when I’m taking one. The same is true when I’m working out with a friend. This article is something I definitely relate to! Hope you enjoy 🙂

About the Author:

Bridget Sandorford is a freelance food and culinary writer, where recently she’s been researching the many types of culinary degrees. In her spare time, she enjoys biking, painting and working on her first cookbook.

How a Workout Buddy can Help You Meet Your Goals Faster

Working out with a friend can do more than give you a chance to catch up on all the latest gossip — it can also help you to meet your health and fitness goals. If you are struggling to start or maintain a fitness program or to stick to a healthy diet, the simple solution may be to enlist the help of a friend.

Here are just a few ways that a workout buddy can help you to meet your health and fitness goals faster:

Makes You Accountable

When you’re headed to the gym after a long and stressful day at work, the temptation to just keep driving and go back to your house instead so you can eat ice cream and watch “Scandal” can be too great. However, if you know that you have to meet your friend at the gym, you’ll be able to overcome that temptation and show up to work out.

Having that accountability will help you to show up more consistently to work out, which will help you meet your health and fitness goals faster.

Pushes You Harder

If your workout buddy is someone who’s further along on a fitness journey, that person is going to push you to work harder. You’re going to have to run faster to keep up. You’re going to have to run longer or to workout longer to stay on par with that person. By pushing yourself harder to keep up with your friend, you’re going to make fitness gains much faster.

Even if your friend is on the same fitness level as you, you are still likely to push yourself further in an effort to save face. You don’t want to be the one to bring the workout to a halt, so you’ll go longer than you might have if you were working out alone.

Gives You New Ideas

Working out by yourself can become monotonous, and you can run out of ideas to keep things fresh. Working out with a friend will give you a lot of new ideas to make your workouts interesting and to push yourself. You’ll stay inspired to keep working out, and you’ll discover new moves and you routines that will help you push yourself further, thereby helping you to meet your goals faster.

Offers You Support

Making changes can be difficult. You can become tired, you can feel lousy, and you can lose your motivation. You need support to help you get through those hard times and to stay focused on your goals. A workout buddy can be the person who offers you that support — who cheers you on when you feel like giving up, who offers you feedback and advice, and who can commiserate with you when you’re down. Getting that support can help you to hang on and to keep pushing toward your goals, making sure you stay on track so that you can meet your goals faster.

Makes It Fun

Exercise is hard work. When you’re not feeling like you’re ready to fall down and cough up a lung, you’re probably feeling like you’d rather be watching paint dry. There are great swings between feeling overwhelmed and bored out of your mind. A friend can make working out fun so that the time just flies by. Exercise will become something that you enjoy doing. You’ll workout more consistently so that you’ll meet your health and fitness goals faster.

Whether you are just getting started on your fitness journey or you have hit a plateau, working out with a friend can help you to meet your goals faster. Enlist a friend to workout with you to help you make it more fun, to push yourself further, and to be more accountable.

Do you work out with a friend? Tell us how it helps you in the comments!