Everyone exercises differently – whilst some of us enjoy the sociability that a group class or run with a friend brings, others could think of nothing worse and would rather pop in their earphones and head to the gym alone. Whilst I love going to group boxing and HIIT classes, I have always tended to do my resistance training sessions and runs by myself as I find that I’m able to focus better and become less distracted. More recently however I have started training with friends and have found there are many benefits.
Firstly I think it makes a big difference to ensuring that you get yourself down to the gym or out for a run/cycle/swim. It’s often the last thing that you want to do first thing in the morning or after a long day at work. If you’ve made plans with someone to train together you’re much more likely to make the effort to get up and go. As much as both of you are probably dreading the next hour ahead of you, the awkwardness of making up an excuse and cancelling is somehow worse that the thought of exercise itself.
There are also so many more exercises that you can do if you have a friend with you. You can start to incorporate a medicine ball into your workouts and throw it between you. You can do squats, lunges and sit ups all with a throw of a medicine ball after each rep to make your core and arms work that little bit harder. ViPRs are also great to use if there are two of you. You can do press-ups opposite each other and then in between each one roll the ViPR towards each other. Slamming the ViPR to the ground for the other person to catch after a bounce and throw back is a great workout to get your heart rate up and is a brilliant way to increase reaction time and speed. Russian twists can also be done together with a ViPR by sitting next to each other and each holding one end of the ViPR and twisting at the same time. You can squat and lunge opposite each other with both of you holding an end of the ViPR and then incorporating a shoulder press with it in between each rep.
What I love best about training with a friend is the interaction that you have with them throughout the whole session – the workout suddenly becomes so much more fun and dynamic and the time seems to pass much faster! Having someone there is a great motivation to keep pushing throughout the session, even when you feel like stopping. Try to pick a friend of family member who has similar goals to yourself so that you can structure your training sessions are mutually beneficial. Each of you will be able to bring different exercise and training ideas that you’ve tried out before which means that your sessions together should always be different and exciting.
