Working Out With Your Partner

For many, the path to health and fitness is a solo journey. The difficult task of justifying an apparent radical lifestyle choice to friends and loved ones often produces resentment and isolation. However, couples who choose to work out together have discovered a multitude of benefits. Exercising together can boost the quality of a romantic relationship. When sharing a common fitness goal, bonds are strengthened in ways that may not have been formed in another way. Studies show that couples who workout together feel more satisfied in their relationships.

Having a gym buddy is an excellent way to create a regular exercise routine with little to no excuses for skipping a planned day. When the gym buddy is someone who shares your household, the degree of accountability is increased. Manufactured excuses such as family or business obligations won't work. The most difficult aspect to working out is simply showing up, so having someone right there to escort you provides less wiggle room for avoidance.

The foundation of a relationship or marriage is teamwork. Taking on new fitness challenges with your partner can take your relationship to a whole new level. By partnering up to achieve health and fitness goals, you create a new, dynamic way for you to bond and to achieve a level of success that you’ve been dreaming of. As you both work toward your goals, you have a better understanding of the obstacles and victories your partner is experiencing. That can help in many ways, not the least of which is trust, attraction and intimacy.

With our busy schedules, finding time to spend with the people we care about can be a challenge. Working out together can be a way to spend additional time together. When you're exercising together with your special someone, you're guaranteed time together for the frequency of your workout schedule. When you’re both committed to the same workout regimen, you’ll be spending time together rather than arguing about one person always being at the gym.

We can all benefit from a little motivation. Who better to keep you going than your special someone? The idea of being “in it together” increases the effort put into the workout itself and with maintaining fitness as part of your lifestyle. There are lots of ways you can motivate each other – just be sure to find fun and constructive ones that work for both of you.

Push/Pull Split Training

For many in the over 40 population, fitness activity is undertaken for the sole purposes of making significant improvements in functional ability to offset the physiological challenges that occur with aging. Adopting a regular fitness program has shown to decrease the risk of conditions such as: obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, depression, anxiety and diabetes. However, a small percentage in this demographic also aspire to make significant improvements in muscle mass and body composition. Although the advent of sarcopenia (loss of skeletal muscle mass) is much more prevalent after age twenty-five, nearly everyone can improve their physique if they embrace scientific training principles. Their desire to push past plateaus and optimize their genetic potential leads them to seek out effective training programs.

The purpose of this article is not to present a be-all end-all method to induce muscle growth, nor is it to engage in a lengthy debate on the most effective muscle building workout. My intention is to provide readers with an effective alternative to the commonly employed 5-Day Split routine and to simplify the training process. The typical 5-Day Split routine incorporated by many bodybuilders looks like the following:

Day 1: Chest

Day 2: Back 

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: Shoulders

Day 5: Legs

Day 6: Arms 

In contrast, Push/Pull Split training although not a new phenomenon is an effective alternative to the traditional body-part split. This method breaks training up by movement pattern. Your chest, shoulders, thighs and triceps get hit on the push day, and your back, hamstrings, biceps and rear deltoids get worked on the pull days. By repeating both workouts on alternate days of the week, you increase the frequency with which each muscle gets trained. The frequency of movement is better for skill acquisition than body-part splits performed once per week and is an important factor in muscle development.

The science of hypertrophy training is ever-evolving as new evidence replaces outmoded training practices. However life does not allow for the acquisition of all conclusive data before one embarks on the path of muscle development. When employing the services of a personal trainer it is the trainer's responsibility to make use of all the scientific research available in combination with providing the professional, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills associated with good coaching, to ensure the best results for those whom he/she serves.

The most apparent benefit to Push/Pull Split training is its application. One need no longer burden oneself with trying to remember the specific muscles trained in the previous workout. All one needs to recall is whether the last workout was a push or pull day. Try Push/Pull Split training for thirty days and assess your results. The ease of application and results may surprise you.

If You're Tired of Starting Over, Stop Giving Up

The new year is the time when many flock to the gym resolving to improve their health and fitness through exercise. While I welcome any catalyst that helps foster personal improvement, it's no secret that the majority of these new year-fueled-enthusiasts will abandon their goal within a month or two. The two major culprits contributing to most failed fitness makeovers are injury and lack of results.

Injury prevention and quantifiable results are of special importance to the mature adult population. It is no accident that this group disproportionately represents my proudest achievements. There are certain physical challenges associated with training those over age 40, however there are also many benefits. One such benefit is an acquired wisdom that realizes that there is no magical formula to success and that real change is the result of the consistent application of a well-designed plan.

Success in fitness is best achieved with the help of a qualified professional. While it is certainly possible to achieve results on one's own, I liken the process to representing oneself in a court of law without an attorney. When choosing to exercise, older adults are generally more receptive to enlisting the services of a professional to learn how to perform exercises properly. Performing exercises improperly will diminish results, and in many cases lead to injury; the two culprits previously noted as demotivators.

I have yet to meet the person young or old who joins a gym with the intention to squander their time and financial resources. As a culture, we are ignorant to proper exercise techniques and fitness. This ignorance isn't based on lack of intelligence, it's simply the lack of knowledge on a particular subject. Those of us who are not chemists, if left up to our own devices in a chemistry lab would probably blow up something. This doesn't mean we are unintelligent. It simply means we are ignorant to chemistry.

Early adulthood was once described as 'the age of infinite wisdom' and the gym is a testament to the assertion. I routinely encounter many youthful gym enthusiasts who forego proper instruction, performing ineffective and often potentially dangerous activities, obtained from friends or internet videos. I'll often introduce the subject of haircare to them, inquiring as to whether they perform their own styling and maintenance. The typical response is a quizzical look that suggest the absurdity of such a question. Their reply is that an important activity that dramatically affects their appearance 'a haircut', should be left up to a trusted professional. Yet while the negative ramifications of a bad haircut are short-lived, the negative consequences associated with improper exercise practises can be life altering.

The belief system that we have is called our paradigm. This paradigm is our filter system. Unfortunately paradigms are based on feelings and the past. Acting on incorrect information, no matter how deeply held, can be catastrophic or at the very least; painful. My fitness challenge to you in the new year is to keep an open mind. Allow your paradigm, your belief system, to drop and be receptive to new learning. Subscribe to exercise as a lifetime commitment and seek professional help to achieve maximum results and minimize the risk of injury. Adopt a personal fitness program that is sustainable over the long-term and commit to it year-round.