FitnessU
Fitness With a Friend
Partner Strength-Training Exercises
Directions:
- Medicine Ball Side Pass: Stand back to back with your partner with one person holding the medicine ball. Reach over to pass the medicine ball to your partner and your partner should catch it underhand. Engage your core with every twist and make sure you reverse sides to get both sides of your abdominals. Do 20 repetitions for 3 sets.
- Abdominal pushdowns: Have partner A lay on their back with their legs straight out and on the ground. Partner A engages their core and lifts their legs until they are straight up to a 90-degree angle. Once the person’s legs and feet reach the top, Partner B pushes Partner A’s feet back down. Partner A lifts their feet again so Partner B can push them back down. Do 10 repetitions for 4 sets.
- Figure 8’s: Both people sit on their ground with their legs a part. Partner A puts their feet on Partner B’s ankles and they hold each others hands or arms. Sitting up straight, the team move their upper bodies in a figure 8 motion, keeping their legs grounded. With each circle, the core crunches and releases.
- High-Five Plank: Both people get into a plank position; on your toes with hands on the ground, making sure shoulders are right over wrists and core is tucked. Reach opposite hands to ‘high-five’ and then switch. Do 30 repetitions for 3 sets. Take childs pose, sitting back onto your heels and extending arms in front of you, in between each set.
-Eliza, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Circuit Race
Directions
- One of the best ways to get a quick workout in with a partner and add some friendly competition is to set up a circuit of 3-4 exercises and try to perform a few rounds of each as fast as possible. For example, you and your partner could perform squats, push-ups, box jumps, and bent over rows all in succession and repeat 4 times for 4 total rounds. You would determine the number of reps of each exercise that are to be performed before you begin the workout. Try to pick exercises with a rep scheme that take about 20-30 seconds to perform.
- As far as starting the workout, I like to have one person start on the first exercise while the partner starts the workout on the third exercise. The goal, though, would be to catch up with my partner. Having the exercises spread out helps to make each person have to push harder to catch the partner.
- When setting things up in a circuit, you need to be mindful of the space and equipment that is available. Usually it’s best to have a combination of exercises that both need equipment and don’t. So push-ups, body weight squats, jump rope, and even crunches and other ab exercises are good fillers to add in addition to exercises that need equipment. Bench press, pull-ups, squats with weight, deadlifts, overhead press, barbell rows, and dumbbell rows are great exercises to put in that require equipment. It all depends on what space you have available and what equipment you have available at the time. You can get a great workout just with performing body-weight exercises though so don’t be discouraged if you don’t have access to a lot of equipment at the time.
-Nick, University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Three Exercises with a Partner
Directions
- Partner squats with arm press: Stand back to back with your exercise partner. With your arms down by your side, push your palms into your partner's palms and maintain this isometric hold throughout the entire set. Balance back to back and together slowly lower your hips, moving your feet away from the body until you are both in a seated squat position. Hold for 30 secs. Slowly rise up and release palm pressure. Repeat 5 times.
- Partner inclines with bicep curls: One partner lays face down, hands by their shoulders, while the other stands by their feet. The partner lying down pushes off their palms while the standing partner lifts their legs off so that the partner on the ground is now in a pushup position. The standing partner raises the legs to their sides on the plane of the belly button and holds while the other partner does a set of 6 to 10 pushups. Lower the partner back in a lying position and switch roles. Do 3 sets, alternating roles.
- Partner UE lift with hamstring curls: One partner lays face down with arms out in front while the other kneels by their feet. The one face down lifts their upper body off the ground and returns and then curls their heels in towards their bottom. For resistance have the seated partner cup the bottoms of the laying partners calves in their palms and pull back as their partner curls their legs. Repeat Upper Extremity lift and then hamstring curl with partner resistance 30 times. Switch roles. Do 3 sets, alternating roles.
-Airyn, Elmhurst College
More Exercises
Tennis is a great team workout that gets both people moving. You do not have to play formal games. Simply hitting the ball back and forth is great cardio!
-Katie C., Mohawk Valley Community College
My partner workout utilizes the partner as a spotter rather than passing weights to them after each maneuver. It is a Compound Superset: For example, bench press immediately followed by incline bench press. You will always have your partner watching for good form and assisting when they see you failing. While you lift, your partner should stand near your head and watch for good form and tell you where you are slacking. Also, if you fail the partner should be prepared to either grab the bar or your wrists in the case of either major failure or to assist in the lift when you just can't finish that final rep. When you are done, switch positions.
-Ralph H., Northwest Vista College
Partner yoga helps you learn your limits along with your partner’s limits. It can be very fun to try some of the more challenging yoga poses with a partner.
-Nichollette N., Tarrant County Community College
I love to play racquetball with my husband, and I go jogging with a friend a couple times a week. The good thing about exercising with somebody is that your mind is taken off the exercise, so it's more fun.
-Alora B., Portland State University
When my friend and I get stressed, I tell her "Let's take a walk to the lake...right now!" and we get to spend time hanging out and talking while exercising! It boosts our endorphins and makes studying and our perspective on stressful situations seem so much better.
-Yuin-Kay C., Cottey College
Weight training workouts using body weight are very effective and, depending on the workout, build up your cardio. Some good exercises that could be done with a partner are jumping lunges, push-ups, and squats. Having a partner is very good to pace your reps and manage your rest times.
-Igor A., Cape Cod Community College
Having a workout buddy helps hold each person accountable and is great for keeping goals. I tend to go to boot camp classes that have stations where you can compete with another person for most reps.
-Alyssa B., Portland State University
Sign up for a mud run or other type of organized run with a friend or a team. They're becoming very popular and range in intensity and distance! That way, you have a goal and can train with your friends to prepare for it together.
-Kimberly W., University of Southern California
Running with a friend can be helpful because you can make it a competition (speed or distance) or just simply call out some motivation to each other (you can do it! just a little further!). Also, the commitment factor is there. Telling someone you will go workout with them makes you more likely to do it!
-Kristian O., San Antonio College
To increase flexibility, stretch your limbs out to their limit. Then pull back. Ask a partner to serve as resistance when you stretch your limb out again to their limit. This exercise assists in increasing your flexibility gradually.
-Bao-Anh P., Tarrant County College
My workout buddy and I do 10 sets of 25 pushups and between each set we do 25 jumping jacks and 25 crunches. Afterwards, we go run around the block for 30 min.
-Enrique L., Allan Hancock College
