The sparring partner

It’s a rainy day, I’m tired and hungry, and the last thing I want to do with my lunch hour is exercise. In fact, there’s only one thing standing between me and the greasy spoon: Rachel. Unfortunately for me, my friend Rachel is pretty tough. Which is why instead of slumping in front of omelette and chips, I will be hitting some bags in the boxing gym nearby. And trying – if I can catch her – to do the same to Rachel.

Sometimes getting to the gym can feel like the hardest part of exercising, and it helps to have a friend to stop you from flaking out. It’s not just the feeling you are letting them down if you miss a session, but that you will enjoy it more when you get there. For me there is an extra motivation – survival. While we might be evenly matched in height and weight, Rachel is much stronger, fitter and more skilled. If I slack off too many times, I will never be able to hold my own in a sparring session and will end up slumped and crying against the ropes.

Jeff Breckon, an exercise psychologist at Sheffield Hallam University, puts this more subtly when he says an exercise partner can work as “healthy competition” or a “role model who can get you out when you don’t feel like it… It creates a sense of responsibility to someone else and social cohesion within a group of like-minded people.” Socially engaging with other people while you are exercising – which I take to mean gossiping – can also mean you exercise for longer. “The evidence is pretty strong in terms of distraction hypothesis,” Breckon says. “If you just go on the treadmill or rower, time can feel like it is going very slowly. But if you’re distracted, your perception of how much you are exerting yourself is much less.”

If you find that working out with someone is helping you to get fitter, he adds, ask someone else to join, too, and pass on the “positive contamination”. “This is a real factor in making people more active,” he says. “One or two people start exercising together, then three or four. Exercising in a group also helps break the monotony and creates a tribal effect.” If you can’t find even one person to exercise with, Breckon says, all is not lost – you can use monitoring tools such as Map My Run which allow you to compare yourself with your peers and tap into your competitive spirit.

According to researchers at Kansas State University, my trick of working out with someone who is fitter also makes sense – in one study they found participants worked out for up to 200% longer if they felt they were with someone who was better than they were. But ultimately, say sports psychologists, it’s about making your workout more fun. If you don’t want to miss out, you are more likely to prioritise exercise and ensure you make time for it in your life. It works for me – after an hour of pounding bags, sparring and keeping up with Rachel’s tireless press-ups, I am tired, sweaty and happy that I turned down that omelette and chips. HK

• timesabc.org.uk group boxing sessions, £5. Lonsdale Pro training gloves and Challenger Head Guards, from sportsdirect.com
  
  
  

The running mate

So often when you think of exercise you think of communal activity; at school lining up, waiting to be picked for a football team or netball side. Everybody knows it’s pure torture if you’re the kid who is chosen last. I was that kid. I had some great friends, but even they didn’t want my clumsy, reluctant form holding them back.

I just couldn’t see the fun in exercising, let alone doing it with other people. So I embraced my sloth-like reputation over many years of enforced PE, and the moment education was over I decided I’d never attempt a dreaded team sport again.

My resolve lasted for 12 years, and I might have gone on doggedly swerving all possible forms of fitness until I got a bit fat and a bit sad. There may have been a competitive element, too. My sister had discovered running, and I was oddly jealous of her new passion. I wound up completing a couch to 5k programme with an ex, and when he pushed off I threw myself into my slow jogs with more gusto.

People say it’s hard to walk alone in life. Sometimes it’s hard to run alone, too. It can be isolating to jog for miles up darkened streets in the rain, with nothing but a playlist of angry songs to motivate you. I might have lost momentum if, one Christmas, my sister and I hadn’t decided to go for a run together.

I did my first 10k that day, as we chatted and pushed each other on. It was cold and rainy and miserable, but it felt easier, quicker, a proper joint effort – even if she did have to slow down to match my wheezing shuffle. We now run together whenever we can, pacing ourselves so that we can talk in a more clear-eyed way than we might over a bottle of wine.

Since then, I’ve accompanied an ex-boyfriend as he trained for an ultra marathon. We’d lost contact, but this mutual interest reunited us. We would run round the park together, catching up and mocking each other for old embarrassments. He let me pause at the adventure playground to go on the seesaw. We stopped for coffee at the end of long and achy treks, getting to know each other again in the most relaxed of ways.

I don’t know what else would have brought him back into my life after more than a decade, apart from this weekly ritual. Knowing that I could keep up with others gave me a true measure of my progress. I no longer felt self-conscious when I went past people I viewed as real runners.

More recently I’ve been running with a girl who’s fairly new to it. As she reluctantly gets going, I blather on about bad dates and work worries and she soldiers on, probably through gritted teeth, doing her first 5k with ease. Even if one of us doesn’t feel like it, the other can usually persuade.

Exercise is hard. It takes a lot for me to lace up my shoes and get going. I still run alone, because there are times when the thinking space that it allows is invaluable. But when I’m feeling anxious, unmotivated or overwhelmed, the social aspect of running with other people can be a huge comfort.

Had I known this all those years ago in PE, I might have made more of an effort to get picked. BM

The gym buddy

It was just under 30 years ago that Alex and I realised we were up against it. Bits of our bodies that used to stay in shape were now engaged in active warfare against us; guts were starting to bulge and what muscle there had been was being replaced by flab. So we started going to the gym together, and we’ve never really stopped. We were that happy coincidence, a pair of narcissists who were made for each other, having already known each other for more than 10 years since university.

Our friendship had already survived several critical tests – me kicking in his front door (least said, soonest mended) and his appalling best man speech at my wedding – so we were more than ready to take our relationship to the next level. Gym buddies.

In the early days, the gym was just part of a wider fitness regime we shared that included starting every session with a three-mile run. That was the bit I enjoyed, as I was much quicker than Alex. Then came the weights. That was the bit Alex enjoyed, as he was much stronger than me.

The run had to go about 10 years in, when my knee gave out and the only aerobic exercise I could manage was the cross-trainer in the gym. Alex wasn’t wholly upset by that development and so now our sessions begin with me on a cross-trainer and him on an exercise bike. I always finish that bit far more knackered than him. I swear it’s because he’s slacking and has his bike on a low resistance setting; he reckons it’s because he just doesn’t sweat very much.

Over the course of three decades, we’ve developed our own routines. Not so much a formal regimen of bench press, hamstring curls and sit-ups, etc but a collection of jokes gathered from the people we’ve met at various gyms over the years. It begins as I prepare to try to lift far less than I used to 15 years ago. “Those are just cooking weights,” says Alex. “My 90-year-old granny could lift them and she’s dead.”

After three sets of 10 repetitions, it’s my turn to undermine Alex. “Remember, the brain is also a muscle,” I say as he out-lifts me yet again. Some things never change.

We moan, we complain the music is too loud, we steer clear of the overly-muscled and the more obviously roid-raged, but we complete our 90-minute workout as we have countless times in the past. Another bit of physical and mental wellbeing in the bank and it would be nice to think we might still be training together in 30 years’ time when we’re both homing in on 90.

“Do you think all this has made much of a difference?” Alex asks me as we finish up. “I mean, each session probably only uses up about 500 calories and look at us. We’re both still falling apart.”

“Yes, but hopefully a little slower than if we’d done nothing.”

“I guess 500 calories four times a week works out at about half a pound a week.”

“There you are,” I say. “If we’d never gone to the gym, we’d both be well over 40 stone by now.” JC

• Thanks to Pancras Square Leisure, better.org.uk

The rules of engagement

1 Don’t break a date It helps if you have similar schedules, and if you live close to one another or work together. Consistency is also crucial while training with a friend. So pick a date and time, and then stick to it.

2 Aim higher, but not too high Training with someone better than you are can make you work harder, although if you are too mismatched the relationship is unlikely to last. Ideally you want someone slightly fitter than you but with a level that you can easily achieve. You don’t want to be with someone so far ahead that you feel guilty about holding them back.

3 Be honest Writing down your goals can help you to keep motivated, but you also need to monitor your exercise, reflect honestly on how it is going – and be willing to adapt if one of you is finding it too hard, too easy or not enjoyable.

4 Choose carefully Not all of your friends will make a compatible buddy. They need to have the same style as you in terms of aims. They should be positive and friendly, and most of all they need to be committed.

5 Set your social bar Do you want to spend time talking during your run or your workout? Does your buddy prefer to catch up before or after? Exercising together should definitely be sociable, but establish the rules of engagement beforehand.

6 Keep it friendly Healthy competition is part of the pleasure of keeping fit with a friend, but the idea is to exercise with them, not battle to the death. It’s great if your partner can help you improve or spur you on with encouragement, but if one of you is sensitive to criticism, then be sparing with the “helpful” advice.