I’m speaking both from my experience as a personal fitness trainer and as a husband. You and your spouse are much better off being fit and working together as a team.
You Will Learn To Work Together as a Team
I’ve seen many, many couples come to work out together.
There is a similar pattern. If they’ve never worked out together, it starts off a bit awkward. They give each other their space, etc.
Then, next thing you know, they are acting in the same manner as two veteran soldiers who’ve been on several campaigns together. Each knows what the other is thinking before they think it.
This happens almost right in front of your eyes. Their bond and sense of friendship gets visibly stronger.
It’s something about working hard together, the different clothing, and being a part of a gym community as a couple. When people refer to you, they refer to both of you. It’s not, “Where’s Johnny Brock?” It becomes, “Where are the Brocks?”
Don’t believe me? Try it.
You Will Influence and Encourage Each Other in a Positive Way
There is a certain bond you develop with your workout buddies. Whether you are a guy or a girl and you work out with guys or girls or both – it doesn’t matter.
When you suffer through an impossible workout and come out the other end of it alive, only a few people understand that emotional roller coaster you went through. Someone who was right there with you sees you struggle, sees you fail, and sees you succeed. They just did it themselves.
There’s no social facade on your face. You can’t hide how you feel when you’re working your butt off.
It’s good to show your real self every now and then. And it is good to encourage your partner when you wiped that mask off your face.
You Will Gain Respect for Your Partner
Watching individuals overcome challenges is inspiring. I’ve done it for pretty much 20 years now.
But when you know what someone looks and acts like in the morning right when they wake up, when they are hungry, when they are excited, and when they are scared – this is a much different experience. You feel what they are going through so much more.
When you are invested in someone and you’re there when they are going through a tough workout, you’ll be that much more in tune with each other.
I’ll tell you straight up that most men don’t know how hard their wives work out at the gym and it’s only because they aren’t there. I bet these guys think their wives are exaggerating when they say how much they did.
More often than not, I’ve gotten a woman super fit and then we finally got her husband in for a workout, and he couldn’t keep up with her. Not even close.
By the end of it, the guys found out what their wives were made of. Then I made the husbands come in to get caught up to speed.
Everyone wins at this game.
Creating Actual Memories Together
Many couples consider time spent in front of the television “together time” even though they don’t even interact with each other. Call me crazy, but I think the best times I’ve spent with my wife are when we were talking, interacting, or otherwise engaged in tackling a common goal.
Trust me, looking back at the best times you spent with your loved one, you’re not going to think of the movie you watched together. You’re going to remember challenges you overcame, places you visited, mountains you climbed and goals you reached. You will remember the 5K race you ran together through the vineyards. You’ll remember the daily workouts you did together to get your beach bods before your vacation.
Those are the memories that will stand above the rest.
Your Relationship to the Community
When you are both out together in the community, it solidifies your relationship. Instead of being known as Johnny Brock and Sally Brock, you’ll be known as the Brocks. One unit.
This doesn’t mean that you’re tied to each other at the hip, it just puts a strong message out in the community. And the community responds by inviting both of you out for social events and gatherings.
If you’re just one person going to the gym, you may get invited to social events and then you’ve got to go talk to your wife (or husband) and then tell them that your gym friends are actually cool people and how the two of you should go. And then it becomes a whole thing and, and and…
It’s way simpler just to know the same people.
Exercising Happens To Be a Very Productive Hobby
Think of a few time-wasting activities you can do as a couple. Now think of a few productive things you can do as a couple. I bet exercise was somehow part of one of them.
It is so easy to sit on the couch and eat junk food. And it is more difficult to go and build something. The secret here is to make building things a habit. Then it becomes easier and easier.
I’m not talking about anything small, I’m talking about big stuff here. Like, watching hardly any television and remodeling part of your house. Going to the gym is also one of those unthinkables for many, many people.
When you put in time exercising for weeks at a time, you are building strength, endurance, flexibility, speed, balance and so much more.
If you’re not making this huge building activity a part of your relationship, you may just be growing apart.
Prepare Yourselves for a Fitness Resort Vacation
If you are both fit and regularly working out, you can enjoy a whole new class of vacations. There is such a thing as a Fitness Resort.
Fit couples have many, many more options open to them when it comes to vacations. You can both go learn how to snowboard or you can stay at a resort with some awesome day hikes next to it, yoga classes throughout the day and dancing at night.
It is nice to be a spectator at a show like Cirque du Soleil, but it is even better to be part of the show. You should be the one climbing the mountain and taking photos. Everyone else who sees it is the spectator. Don’t just sit there looking at what other couples do, go and do something amazing.
It all starts in the gym.
Conclusion
There are 10,000 things you can do to make a marriage go down the drain. There are also 10,000 things you can do to make a marriage better and healthier.
Taking your loved one to the gym is one of those really, really big things that helps your relationship.
Sometimes it isn’t always clear what to do to make a relationship go better. But I can say that building up a firm foundation of productive time spent together is not going to hurt the relationship.
I speak from my own experience as well as from what I have seen in the gym over two decades. The healthiest and happiest couples put in their time – together.
My advice here is to try it out. See if you can make a routine out of working out with your significant other. Don’t take my word as final. Try it for yourself and see what happens.
I’ve never seen a couple break up because they started exercising together.