As far as diet and exercise are concerned, generally there are three different types of days when it comes to your workouts. The first type of day is when you simply head to the gym, take a while to get going, but then find yourself improving as the minutes go by, leaving you with a pretty satisfying and productive workout. The second type of training day is unfortunately pretty rare so when you do experience one, you should embrace it with open arms. We’re talking about days when your workouts are absolutely amazing. Your strength and endurance levels are through the roof, your adrenalin is pumping and the endorphins are flowing, you break personal bests and you feel great after. Unfortunately, last on our list we have the exact opposite of that, and an example of a type of day which is all too common for many of us. Days when we just cannot get ourselves motivated to work out, and days when our strength and energy levels are far too low for our liking. If you experience days like that then don’t worry however, because there are things you can do to help you out, one of which is to train with a gym buddy/workout partner. Here are some advantages.
A gym buddy will help keep you motivated – When you train alone it’s far too easy to simply sack the gym off altogether and go another day, or to simply go there, go through the motions so you can get in and out as quickly as possible. Training with a gym buddy however, will keep you motivated and fired up to actually enjoy your workouts. They will encourage you, they will stop you from quitting, and they can even offer helpful advice and tell you whether you’re doing things right or not.
They hold you accountable – As mentioned before, training alone means you only have to answer to yourself, which means if you do decide you’d rather stay in and watch TV at night, as opposed to working out, then the only person you’re letting down is yourself. If you’ve arranged to train with a gym buddy however, you will also be letting them down if you decide you can’t be bothered, and you will also have to answer to them and explain yourself. Being held accountable helps motivate you to actually make the effort and train, even on days when you’d rather do nothing.
They add a competitive element – Sometimes gym buddies will add a bit of friendly rivalry to their workouts, trying to beat each other’s lifts for example. Say one person gets 8 reps, the next may push themselves to try to get 9. Even if you don’t acknowledge it, the competitive element is there for most people and it does help to spur you on and force you to push yourself that little bit further than you would normally.