Poll: Working out with significant other?

I HATE working out with my husband! He has a completely different idea of working out and I'm just getting warmed up and he's done and ready to leave. Plus he tries to be cute and funny and it just annoys the heck out of me. Much better for us to do our own things.

Yep- that's totally me and my s/o...

depends on my mood... sometimes when I'm PMSing, the sound of my SO breathing hard while exercising really pisses me off. :explode: he knows to go do his own thing. :laugh:

otherwise, we learned to really enjoy being each other's spotter.. I don't feel intimidated in the free weights section around other men even more so when he's around. No guy wants to get caught looking at another guy's wife. :laugh:

Me and my man used to work out together but I decided to do it alone for now. We might do it again soon.

I don't workout with my husband. Actually, until recently, he didn't exercise at all - he wasn't interested.

Now he's worked out he's at least 8kg into the overweight BMI range, so he's starting out small by swimming laps in our pool for about 30mins every morning.

While he's doing that, I'm either doing my weights or at our 10yo's swim squad training. Our schedules very rarely align.

Sometimes we swim together on a weekend, but not often. I can do 4x the number of laps in the same time frame so I don't want to discourage him at all. I just make sure to let him know I think he's doing awesome

I'm not sure he'll be able to lift weights (severe scoliosis and a rather big carbon fiber rod in his back), but if he ever gets to that point, his doctor will have to give it the okay. He's still a lot stronger than me anyway as he grew up on a farm and does a lot of outside work even here at home.

Years ago, I tried working out with my wife, then gf. Went badly and we probably wouldn't be married if we continued that way. We tried cycling together. We weren't compatible riders. I tried working with her when she trained for a 5k while I was doing a bike ride. We also tried going to the gym and lifting together. The primary reason for the friction was different attitudes towards working out. She wanted to go on a bike ride and tour around. I wanted to go fast. She saw going to the gym as a chore and wanted to take it a bit easy, and I wanted to lift more than the previous trip. She hates running and so do I, so we agree. My way results in more calories burned in a workout. Her way keeps her going to workout. We are both right and wrong.

This basically resulted in us not working out together. We would carpool to the gym. I pretty much stopped riding. It just didn't seem to be right to go on a long ride alone. Having a baby made it worse. I'm certainly not placing blame. This probably was a major reason we both got so far out of shape. Ironically, this helps us workout together now. We're at the same pathetic level. Going forward, we are finding ways to workout together. Right now, it's doing Power 90 videos in the morning. I don't know if or how we're going to make it work long term. We really need to figure it out. Between kid(s) and work it's just not feasible to workout alone and have a lot of time together.

It is funny how it works though. I have the "know everything" character flaw. It is a serious flaw. She has the "won't listen" character flaw. This results in the completely hilarious situation where she pays an expert to do or help her with things that I would do for free. And I'm totally okay with it now. We went through it on road bike fit. I got her into one setup. She wanted a different setup, but couldn't get comfortable in it. She goes to get a $150 bike fit done. The guy puts her into a setup pretty close to what I did. Most annoying was that I had a 100mm stem on that bike. She had me switched it to an 80mm upright stem. The bike fit guy put a 100mm stem on, and of course charged premium for the part. I cringe every time I see that extra 100mm stem in the part box.

I would not want to run with him, but that would be true of anyone. I like doing my own thing and pacing myself they way I want. Once I'm a better runner, this will be less of an issue.

I wouldn't mind doing martial arts with him, but he isn't interested.

We do lift together though, and it's great "us" time. We spot each other on bench, help each other rack weights etc. It is also nice taking turns on the squat rack, so that anyone waiting isn't glaring at you just for taking the rest between sets that you are supposed to take. We also hike together in the summer.

Personally I prefer to work out completely alone. However I am there for my partners workouts as I wrote up his plan for him, and also as he finds it more motivating to have someone there to talk to/check form/load/spot. We workout at home though, I don't go to the gym just to help him lol.
And yeah PDA at a gym, no.
If you would rather do it alone, do it alone, gotta do what works for you

He was the one to inspire the "let's run every day and lose weight" thing initially, and for several months we would take turns kicking each other out of the bed to get moving. That helped a LOT and neither of us would have been able to keep up with it for so long on our own. He was the one that inspired me to join boot camp for a few years, too, actually.

I talked him into Tough Mudder, so we've done that and a Spartan Beast together, and we did our first triathlon together.

We run at different paces, so we get our 'alone time' on the trail, but the getting out part is what's hard, and helpful to have. For a while he had a gym membership so would do yoga classes, and we rock climb together as well (I love that).

He plays racquetball without me, and those were the nights I'd be in pole class, but for a long time most of our exercise was done together.

Lately he's still ambivalent about joining me for morning runs again since he got sick, so lots of doing our own things, but we are rock climbing tonight (I think) and sometimes we'll go to his townhouse gym.

Being such active people, though, I think it would be hard to find time together if we didn't do active things together. For a few months we were working out twice a day, that doesn't leave for much couples time!

My ex always talked about riding his bike while I ran but it happened *maybe* once that I can remember. There's a reason I was 20 pounds heavier then. I LOVE having an active partner that actually does things with me and appreciates fitness and active lifestyle. Without him I doubt I'd have done a triathlon yet (even figuring out how to get the bike there..) and would probably not have tried windsurfing.

That is all. *sulks out in search of another thread*

Have you talked to him about PDA at the gym?

Mine would hate that, he balks at sweaty hugs. Gym time is pretty parallel for us.

All that I previously wrote..is not to say we haven't had our issues. He once got pissed off at me for something about push-up form in boot camp.