There’s strength in numbers. Never is this more true than when it comes to committing to working out.
It’s the reason people hire personal trainers or sign up for a bootcamp with a friend: Accountability. And what more convenient accountability partner than your intimate partner? If you live with the person, even better.
What if we’re at different fitness levels? How does that work?
Rest assured, it can still work, even if one person is much fitter, stronger, or faster than the other.
Here are 5 ways to workout with your partner, even in the comfort of your own own, if you so desire:
1. Choose Your Own Adventure Burpees
Burpee intervals, where you each work for a specific amount of time, tend to work well for people who move at different speeds, as you’ll both end up doing an appropriate amount of work for your level, as opposed to one person whooping the other person’s butt.
Try this:
- One person works for 30 seconds doing as many burpees as they can, while the other person rests. Then reverse roles.
- Repeat for a total of 8 to 10 rounds each. Can you hold the same number of burpees in your last interval as you did in your first?
Make sure your chest touches the ground at the bottom of the burpee and that you fully extend your hips and jump at the end with your hands overhead.
2. High Five Partner Planks
You have probably done a plank before, and maybe a shoulder tap, where you raise one arm and touch your hand to your opposite shoulder, all the while stabilizing through the core and keeping your hips from shifting.
This is the same concept, only instead of tapping your shoulder, you raise your hand and high five your partner’s hand.
To perform:
- Face each other and assume the plank position.
- At the same time, raise your right hands and gently high five. Then the left. Back and forth.
- Focus on keeping your hips from shifting and your glutes and abs as tight as can be through the duration of this exercise.
After finishing the choose your own adventure burpees, finish with 3 rounds of 20 high five partner planks with one minute rest between sets.
3. Ab War
One two three four—I declare an ab war.
On a day you’re feeling competitive, go for a max effort hollow hold against each other. Who can hold a hollow hold longer?
Make sure your shoulder blades are off the ground, your lower back is glued to the ground, your hands are straight overhead and your heels are hovering four to six inches off the ground.
Then finish with 100 hollow rocks as a team. Break them up as needed and complete 100 together.
4. Interval Isometric Fun
Similar to the burpee workout, trade off movements of:
- 30-second wall sit hold
- 30-second dead bug hold
Or better yet, make it a bully dead bug, where your partner pushes your arms and legs around a bit to force you to resist their pushes and tighten up your core with everything you’ve got. This is also a great core activation drill.
5. Race a 10 to 1
I really like 10-1 workouts, because each round gets easier. You can do this with all sorts of movements, but basically select two movements and do 10 reps of each, then 9 reps of each, then 8, 7, 6 all the way to 1.
If you’re at a similar fitness level, then select one movement each that you’re good at and then race each other. Or, if one person is way more fit, then have them do 10-1 while the other person does 9-1, kind of like a handicap in golf.
Try it with air squats and sit ups, or burpees and lunges, or push-ups and hollow rocks. The sky is the limit.
Why?
Because as the saying goes, ‘Those who train together stay together.’