Benefits of a Training Buddy

There’s a lot of terminology and slang associated with fitness training, you’ve probably come across a lot of this in mainstream media, social media, magazine, and movies. One you may or may not know about is the ‘Training Buddy’.

This term can conjure up cringe worthy images of overly attached ignoramuses who stalk about the gym slamming weights and drinking protein shakes. Forget about that imagery. Training on your own is hard, you’re going to have your ups and downs and it’s down to you to motivate yourself to train every day and eat right.

It’s no easy feat and its testament to a strong character and unbreakable willpower when an individual manages to do this long term on their own.

There is an alternative to this and it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. If you can find someone who is either slightly better than you or around the same standard and experience as you consider asking them if they’d like to pair up for training. Having a training buddy can massively increase your chances of consistently training on the days you may not want to.

When you have a day where you just want to stay in bed, before you turn over and close your eyes again, you’ll picture your gym buddy, they’re in the gym and working hard without you.

You’re not there to help them and now that you think of it, they’re getting better than you and you can’t let that happen.

You may have text or spoken the day before and confirmed you’d be there. You don’t want to be that individual who doesn’t back up what they say do you? If you’ve committed to it and you’re accountable you’re more likely to make yourself, go and not turn over in bed.

Maybe there’s a class you want to do but you’re petrified of being the only new person, time to get your trusty gym buddy and confidently suggest you both try that new circuit training class you saw advertised in your gym.

Having someone there with you in the gym can push you to do one more set where on your own you would have given up; they’ll push you to run just a little bit faster when you thought you’d nothing left. You’ll also progress through things together and you might strive towards goals you might previously not have envisioned for yourself.

‘Hey there’s a team adventure race coming up in two months, let’s enter it and see what happens, we can plan and train for it together!’

Don’t underestimate the power of having someone there to push you. Conversely choose your training buddy wisely the last thing you want is someone extremely negative who is going to sap your energy before you even start training. Also be conscious that if it isn’t working then you need to be capable of saying so, this may not be so easy if your buddy is very close to you as you might be wary of hurting their feelings.

There are a lot of great dual exercises that you can use to push each other. AMRAP is a term you may or may not have heard of before; it is an acronym for ‘as many reps as possible’. It usually refers to a set of exercises you complete in sequence to be done in a certain amount of time. These are great exercises to do with a training buddy. You can also do exercises where you must get a cumulative number of reps to complete the set.

Remember that it takes nothing to join the crowd, but it takes everything to stand alone, if you have a trusty training buddy standing beside you it’s going to make doing the hard graft that little bit easier and that much more enjoyable.

If you’re both competitive people, then use that competitive energy to push off each other be always respectful and supportive but when it comes time to test your mettle give it everything to beat your training buddy. If you’re both doing this, you’ll both improve.

You might be a very weak runner and they might be strong, have them run ahead of you and force yourself to keep with a certain distance, or maybe you’re good on strength training and they’ve never lifted a weight. Share the knowledge, helping someone is one of the most satisfying things you can do and both of you will benefit from the process.

If you’ve chosen to join a club or a team as your method of improving your health and fitness that’s fantastic and will serve you well on your journey, there’s going to be people in front of you, alongside you and behind you as regards your physical capacity.

Give them all the respect they deserve, be quite and attentive when those ahead of you are speaking, be confident in your own opinions and capabilities with those at your own level and be patient and caring with those below your level.

Work as hard as you can using your plan and the advice your coaches give you and some day after you’ve given your best time and time again those who you had idolised above you will be alongside you and they’ll be your new physical capacity barometer and you’ll be theirs. The wolf at the bottom of the hill is hungrier than the wolf at the top.

A training buddy or buddies will often put you in situations where you may be a little bit afraid.  They might sign you up for a triathlon or you might be competing in a big game in a few weeks. You’ll mentally break yourself down every day and question if you can do it, that’s fine we all do it, remember that without fear it wouldn’t be as satisfying to do it. As I’ve mentioned before your fear can become a very powerful weapon to drive you to your goals.

In closing, try and keep a positive mind-set, Jigoro Kamo once said that ‘a negative frame of mind runs counter to the principle of maximum efficiency’.

Given that you’re working smarter and not harder now and being as efficient and as effective as possible with both your diet and exercises ask yourself is it worth your time and energy to waste time being negative?

Remember, chin up, chest out and handle it.

Yours,

Stephen