Looking for a way to help boost your workouts, stay focused and accountable, and find fitness goals that really matter to you? How about improving communication and intimacy in your relationship along the way?
It’s no secret that exercising with a gym buddy has many benefits. Exercising with your significant other can take those fitness benefits to the next level, and have a profoundly positive effect on your relationship. Here are three reasons why exercising together should be a cornerstone in any healthy relationship:
1. Exercise Adherence
Three big factors that help increase the chances of sticking to a regular exercise routine are support, challenge, and accountability. Supporting each other, challenging each other, and holding each other accountable are qualities of a healthy relationship required for growth and bonding, and these qualities fit perfectly with sharing a healthy, active lifestyle. We all sometimes need a little empathetic motivation, some healthy competition, or to be called out on our excuses – and we’re more likely to value and prioritize this when it comes from our partner.
Richard and Kathy Cheng have been working out together at IF Kitsilano for over 11 years. “We gave each other a membership as a Christmas gift and renewed it yearly ever since.” While Richard is self-motivated, training together helped motivate Kathy to workout, and they’ve both stayed committed through ups and downs, injuries, setbacks, and of course many successes. “Working out together adds a little competition. We also encourage each other. Having a partner to train with is definitely more enjoyable and fun.”
2. Better Goals and Bigger Successes
When couples care about health and fitness – both their own and their partner’s – it is much easier to set and achieve fitness goals, and those goals and achievements hold more importance. Studies have shown that simply being in the presence of your partner can make you perform better, without you even being aware of it. We’re simply wired to want to be the best versions of ourselves when our loved ones are around.
A mutual fitness goal was the spark that brought IF Kits clients Michael and Jennifer together, and they continue to push and support each other. “Jennifer and I started our relationship 15 years ago over an argument about who could perform better in an endurance contest at a mutual friend’s gym,“ says Michael. Endurance running has become an integral part of their relationship, setting competitive goals together and sharing each other’s successes. “All these years later I still prefer to workout with Jennifer, as we’re both competitive and supportive… but for 15 years, mostly competitive!”
3. Deeper, Happier Relationships
Much of the reason why we choose a particular partner is because we enjoy spending time with them. Overcoming challenges together creates strong bonding, shared respect, and deeper feelings of affection. Studies have shown that after participating in an exciting physical challenge together, couples say they feel greater satisfaction with their relationship and more in love with their partner. In fact, exercise actually creates symptoms similar to that of romantic attraction – sweaty palms, flush face, increased heart rate, and shortness of breath.
I met my wife Jaine over 10 years ago while we were both working out at a local community centre gym. With backgrounds in kinesiology, our worlds revolved around health and fitness. When we began dating, it seemed we spent more time in the gym together than anywhere else. A decade later, physical activity is as much a part of our relationship as it is our careers. Through good times and bad, it’s one thing that has always kept us connected.
In short, sharing health and fitness goals together and working hard to achieve them not only increases your chances of success, but can improve the quality of your romantic relationship. So grab your significant other, challenge yourselves to a great workout, and fall in love all over again!
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Chris Walker
Professional Training Coach
Innovative Fitness Kitsilano
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