There are many things in life which will make you happy and healthy, but they aren’t always able to be combined. When it comes to friendship and exercise, however, they are the perfect match. Having friends around you to combat loneliness is extremely important, and exercising is essential to your health and longevity. Therefore, having a fitness buddy makes a lot of sense, and there are many other reasons to have one as well.
More Enjoyable Workout
There are some people who absolutely love working out or exercising in general, and some who hate it. It doesn’t matter how much you do or don’t like exercising; everyone still needs to do it. Finding someone to exercise with you will make it a much more enjoyable experience, even if you don’t normally like the process at all. Spending time with friends is something that will always make even the most uninspiring, mundane, or difficult of tasks much better, so adding a fitness buddy to your workout is going to help hugely. After your workout, you can discuss what you did and didn’t like, and perhaps even come up with a new exercise plan.
Fewer Injuries
Working out on your own is fine, but the mirrors in the gym can’t give you all the answers as to whether you’re doing it right and in a way that means you’re not going to injure yourself. If you have a buddy with you, they will be able to instantly let you know if your technique could do with some improvement, and that will help you to improve how you go about exercising. Getting your technique right is the best way to avoid injury, so if someone is there to help you, you can workout with more confidence, and get a better result.
Less Stress
Exercise is a great way to relieve stress. It promotes the creation of hormones that boost happiness and fights against hormones that cause depression and malaise. When you have completed a good workout or exercise class, you will immediately feel much better about yourself and your life, and often any problems that have been plaguing you will seem much smaller. You may even be able to come up with the answers you have been looking for.
When you workout with a fitness buddy, your stress levels will decrease even more. Studies have shown that those who exercised with someone else felt a lot calmer and happier after their workout than those who exercised alone, even if they didn’t speak throughout the workout and just got on with their own exercising. It’s simply the fact that you have a friend with you that helps, rather than any specific interaction between the pair of you during your exercising. That means that you can do your own thing in the gym and still benefit from being there with someone.
Push Harder
If you look at your fitness buddy and think that they are doing a better job than you in your class, at the gym, during the game you’re playing together, and so on, that’s a good thing! It will make you push yourself harder and become even better, healthier, and fitter. In fact, those who work out with someone that they consider to be fitter than them put 200 percent more effort into their exercising than those who worked out alone. The more effort you put into your fitness regime, the better the outcome, so this is definitely a good reason to workout with someone rather than on your own.
You’ll Be Accountable
When it’s just you working out, you can get away with a lot. You can get away with not turning up to a class and saying you were feeling sick. Or you can spend less time at the gym. You can eat poorly, or drink too much, or keep smoking when you’re meant to be quitting. If you have a fitness buddy, you’ll be much more accountable, and, because you’ll be responsible for someone else as well as yourself, and you don’t want to le a friend down, you’ll be much more likely to do all the things that are good for you.
One of the jobs your fitness buddy will have is to ensure that you are doing what you’re meant to do, and if you have any problems getting motivated, they will help you – just as you will help them if the same thing happens. You can give up the bad things together, and because you’re working together, you are more likely to succeed.
So you could have a diet plan that you need to stick to, and you have to let each other know what you ate each day. Or you could try vaping instead of smoking and look at custom drip tips together. Plus you’ll workout together, and if one of you is thinking of skipping a class, the fact that you’re meant to be working out with someone else should make you think twice.
Meet Goals Faster
When you are working out, you should have goals that you need to reach. It could be a certain weight to hit by a specific date or a fitness level that you want to hit. Whatever it is, working out with a fitness buddy tends to mean that you will hit those goals a lot faster. This is because you will be more motivated and won’t skip the gym or any classes, as mentioned above. It’s also because you want to ‘impress’ the other person; you want their praise and admiration. Although it’s important to lose weight and get fit for yourself rather than someone else, having someone there whom you don’t want to ‘fail’ or do less than your best in front if can really help with your motivation.
When it comes to goals for your fitness, it’s best to have small ones that are attainable and realistic. Added together, these are like stepping stones that will help you reach your ultimate goal in the end, but they won’t be overwhelming and stop you from moving forward.