Hello everyone. Today’s article is a guest post from Heather Green of Online Nursing Degrees.
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Maintaining the motivation to workout can be hard in these cold winter months. Who wants to crawl out of a warm bed to run outside in the cold? Then again, it can be hard to keep up the motivation in the summer months when fun in the sun is much more appealing. Turns out, there’s always a reason NOT to exercise. Finding a workout buddy can help keep you on track and stay motivated all year long. In fact, working out with a friend has many benefits. Here are a few:
1) It’s More Fun
Jogging mile after mile staring at an asphalt trail or the monitor on a treadmill can become very boring. If you log those same miles chatting with a friend, the mile markers will fly by without you noticing. (Well, maybe not, but at least they’ll seem to pass by more quickly.) Having a workout buddy lets you talk and tell jokes while you exercise, making it more enjoyable. If you’re the kind of person who needs to be distracted when you work out, a friend is the best kind. An added bonus is that if you’re a busy person (and who isn’t?), working out with a friend lets you multi-task by fitting in social time with workout time.
2) You Have to Do What You Say You’re Going to Do
If you tell yourself that you’re going to wake up at 5 a.m. to fit in a workout before work, no one will notice if you don’t do it. If you tell your friend that you’re going to meet her at the gym at 5 a.m. to fit in a workout before work, she’s definitely going to notice if you don’t do it. And she might be angry about it. Working out with a friend makes you accountable for your workouts. You are essentially making a date to work out, which means that you are more likely to lace up and head out the door. You are much less likely to keep telling yourself that you’ll go the gym “after this episode” until you’ve watched the whole first season of “The Real Housewives.”
3) You Get a Support System
A workout buddy is like your own personal cheering section. This is someone you can talk to you about your fitness and weight-loss goals and with whom you can share your trials and successes. When you’re doing well, there is someone to celebrate your success and encourage you to keep going. If you hit a road block, there is someone to remind you of your motivation and encourage you to keep going. Having a person to workout with also encourages you to try new things. It is much less intimidating to join a new class or try out a new sport when you have someone doing it with you.
4) You’ll Do More
If you start to feel tired when you’re working out, it’s easy to drop a set or to run a little slower. However, if you’re working out with a friend, you’ll do that extra set and run a little faster because you don’t want to slow down your friend and because you don’t want to seem like the “loser.” Our natural sense of competition kicks in when we work out with a friend, and we want to be sure that we are keeping up or even doing better in the workout.
5) A World of Exercise is Opened
There are many exercises that either need a spotter or a partner to perform. If you have a workout buddy, you can get a spotter to lift heavier weights in the gym or to try more acrobatic moves or stretches. If you have a workout buddy, you can perform partner exercises, like partner push-ups, crunches with a medicine ball, rowing, and more. Workout partners can help you do more so that you are always trying new things to keep challenging your body and to keep you from getting bored.
If you are starting to lose the motivation to work out, or you feel that your exercise routine has gotten stale, consider working out with a friend. You’ll have more fun, find motivation to get to the gym, and push yourself harder when you’re working out. At the end of the day, you’ll get a good workout and spend some quality time with a friend.
About the Author:
Heather Green is a freelance writer for several regional magazines in North Carolina as well as a resident blogger for onlinenursingdegrees.org. Her writing experience includes fashion, business, health, agriculture and a wide range of other topics. Heather has just completed research on online asssociates degree in nursing and online nursing schools in pa.