Those who train together, stay together.
A good training partner is hard to find, but is worth their weight in gold if you’re lucky enough to stumble upon one.
And it’s not just to save you the hassle of asking someone for a spot.
The perfect training partner can take your results to the next level. If you don’t have the luxury of having a UP personal trainer to push and coach you, finding the right training partner may just be the next best thing.
Here’s why:
Accountability
One of the reasons we are so successful in delivering results is because we make our clients extremely accountable to their goals.
A good training partner can replicate this.
On the days you don’t feel like training, if you don’t turn up, you’ll let him or her down.
When you’re thinking about cheating on your diet, and your training partner shares the same goals as you, you’ll think twice about doing so.
Accountability is one of the most underrated aspects of fat loss. Having someone you hold yourself accountable to is critical to success – and not only in the gym.
You’ll Train Harder
Besides getting excellent results with our clients, part of UP’s reputation is built on our ability to extract the absolute maximum from our clients on the gym floor.
If you’ve seen some of our UP Hypertrophy Day videos, you’ll get a snippet of how hard we train our clients.
The advantage of a good training partner is you’ll be able to take sets further than you expected, sneak in a few more reps, and most importantly, be able to push yourself to the limit safely.
Competition
If you can find the right training partner with the same goals as you, the healthy competition will only bring out the best in both of you.
Let’s say you and your training partner decide to undergo a 12-week transformation together.
Don’t be surprised if you’re breaking PBs in the gym every session, dieting harder than ever and dropping body fat at a rate like never before.
Having someone to compete against will make reaching any goal a more fulfilling experience.
So what do I look for when searching for the perfect training partner?
1. Invested In You
Searching for the right training partner is like trying to find a world-class personal trainer.
The first requisite is that they need to be invested in you and your results.
This is why good friends are often the best training partners, as they’ll genuinely care about your results and want to see you succeed.
2. Better Than You in Some Ways
You may have heard the famous saying, ‘If you want to become a millionaire, surround yourself with millionaires’.
This advice is transferable across all walks of life.
In fitness, training with people who are better than you can really force you to step your game up.
What’s better is when you and your training partner have opposing strengths and weaknesses. This way it becomes a two-way competition, and you’re both onto each other to improve.
3. Trust and Reliability
If you’re looking for a training partner to take your results to the next level, they need to be trustworthy and reliable.
If you’re dreading a cancellation text message an hour before every training session, chances are you need a new partner.
A good training partner will show up and be ready to go on time.
You also need to be able to trust the person.
If you’re squatting with double your bodyweight on your back and something goes wrong, you’ll need to trust your partner to help you out.
4. Similar Goals
Training with someone who has vastly different goals to you can be tough.
An overweight woman in her 40s will need different training to a skinny man in his early 20s.
Even if the personality fit is great, they won’t be able to directly push each other super hard in their training as their goals would be the polar opposite.
While goals don’t need to be exactly the same, having similar goals will mean you’ll be able to relate to each other more, and challenge each other to a greater extent.
5. Knows When to Push, and When to Back Off
This is a little more advanced, and comes with time. Usually after training with someone for a few months.
Where a training partner can become really valuable is when they have the ability to spot when you’re ready to be taken to the limit, and when you need to back off a little.
This is an important quality that separates the wheat from the chaff in the personal training industry.
It takes experience, skill and understanding of the client to do, but can really accelerate results if done right.
6. Constructive
A good training partner won’t be afraid to tell you how it is.
If you’re cutting your squats high, continuously messing your diet up, or lifting with no focus, your partner should be the first one to tell you what you’re doing wrong.
7. Knows What Makes You Tick
The first question we ask any new client is ‘why are you here?’
We need to know what’s driving our clients, and we need to be able to use this ‘why’ when appropriate to keep them on track.
Your training partner should be someone who knows you well and knows how to press your buttons if you need a push.
As you’re reading this, you’ll realise that many of the qualities of the perfect training partner are the same that you would expect in a top personal trainer.
That’s how valuable it can be, which is why we urge you never to train alone again.
As they say, those who sweat together, make changes together!
