Partner Workouts

I love training with Mike. We both have similar goals and we're both really driven and competetive.. In a good friendly way! I thought I would share some of the workouts we like to do with each other so you can try them with your partners, or friends, or anyone you might coerce into a challenge!

Teamwork
We have a number of exercises and a numeric goal for each exercise and work together to accomplish the goal. Click the link for a more detailed account. The best thing about this is the faster you do it the more benefits you get and the faster you're free to get on with other things!

Isometric holds
One person performs an isometric hold whilst the other completes a certain number of exercises. If the person holding the isometric hold drops it the person doing the exercises has to start from scratch. Examples;
Person 1 holds plank whilst person 2 performs * crunches
Person 1 holds wall sit whilst person 2 performs * squats
Person 1 holds bear hold whilst person 2 performs * push-ups
Person 1 does isometric punches whilst person 2 performs bag work or shadow boxing
Then swap person 2 moves to holds and person 1 performs the exercises!
* choose a number suitably challenging for your personal ability.
Add any of your own isometric holds into the mix and pair them with a related exercise. The possibilities are endless! Include yoga maybe? Anything you like really!

Intervals
We go to the track or a field and run our intervals together but at our own pace.

Race to...

• 100 burpee challenge (Mike does burpees with the push-up and I do them without, then we're fairly even in speed and can be quite competetive.. plus burpees with a push-up would be more of a strength exercise for me than conditioning..)
  
• Magic 50 Here's one account of me doing the magic 50.. I didn't write Mike's time down but we're always racing each other!!
  
• Workout Capacity 101 I've got two blog posts about workout capacity 101, note my variation is slightly different to the one on Rosstraining so be sure to check out the first link for the original workout. Here is another of my workout capacity 101 experiences.
  

Padwork
We put on the pads for each other and shout out combinations. One person starts holding the pads for a few rounds and then we'll swap so we both get time working the pads. To get hold of a set of pads, boxing gloves and hand wraps isn't too expensive and it's a really good workout even if you don't know too much about boxing, it's good stress relief too... Just try not to hit your pad holder in the face... I've come very close to that a few times when my glove has slipped off the pad!!

So, there you have it! Those are the main workouts we do together. I hope this inspires you to get your partner into a joint workout :-)

Teamwork

Last night we did not go boxing... Mike didn't want to and since it's something we do together I didn't go alone. We did do a killer workout at home though...

300 crunches
300 star jumps
200 MB slams
150 Burpees
100 Push-ups
50 Pull-ups

Done as fast as possible as a team - makes you want to work extra hard so you don't let each other down... I had a little tally at the bottom to count my push-ups and pull-ups (I did chin-ups) separately so I could use them in my monthly totals. I counted them to the main totals of course. Mike carried me on the pull-ups quite a bit but I matched him on the push-ups and burpees and everything else was pretty even.. We should have done 250 star jumps which would have looked a lot neater but Mike miscounted at the end and we did more so I said we'll just do 300 every time.

Here I am looking surprisingly happy before...

Here is Mike before.. please excuse the chaos in the room behind him... packing!!

This is what we looked like after, yuck!!

How come he doesn't look like a tomato and I do.. hmmph!

I can't quite believe I am posting this sweaty mess picture, including my less than perfect belly on the interwebs... I feel very brave haha!

Done!

We finished in 18.58. If we don't beat this time next month we have to do 50 burpees as a punishment... I hope we beat our time!!

I managed 14 chin-ups 4 more than last month's entire total and 50 push-ups.. Just shows what your body is capable of when you push it. By the way... I still didn't check my max reps... I'm officially a wimp!

Do you workout with your parnter? I'm writing a blog post based on partner workouts at the moment. If you have any questions I can answer or any content to add, opinions, partner workouts you love etc, get in touch!