For those days when you need to be dragged to exercise

Have you ever snoozed your alarm way past the time that you had planned to get up in the morning to exercise, or prolonged cheat day into cheat week?  It’s so easy to put off exercising and reaching goals when you are not accountable to anyone and you don’t have to answer to anyone.  What you could have achieved in 2 weeks, you end up completing in a month.

It is usually much easier to work out on your own when you have short term goals to reach such as shaping up for an event or season, however, for a lifestyle change braving it all by yourself becomes quite challenging.  This is where an accountability partner comes in, someone to keep the fire burning long after it was lit.  How then do you know who to pick?  Let us go through this short checklist towards picking the correct accountability partner:

  • Reliable
    Reliability equals consistency.  In order to be accountable to someone, that person needs to be a regular face at your place of exercise, a person who doesn’t who doesn’t make excuses or allows you not to show up unnecessarily.
  • Punctuality
    Being on time requires a lot of discipline that also goes hand in hand with establishing a healthy lifestyle.  If you struggle with being on time and keeping to an exercise schedule in terms of hours of the day, get yourself a partner that is punctual, this will also challenge you to stop snoozing the alarm!
  • Corresponding workout times
    It would be convenient for your AP to go have a similar exercise schedule to yours as this will ensure that you are able to encourage it other in terms of regular attendance.
  • Same workout place
    Your AP and you need to meet regularly and therefore being at the same gym/boot camp will be ideal.
  • Ideal body and diet goals
    Never pick someone who is on the same level of fitness as you, your AP should be someone who inspires you to push even harder, someone you look at when you can hardly breathe during a session and be inspired to go 7 more times just to attain what they have.
  • Firm
    An AP cannot be lenient, this partner needs to be firm as they will be helping you reach your goals, they cannot allow you miss a training session unless you are standing with one foot in the grave.  Pick someone who will not give into your excuses or temptations to order soda over water!

Remember you can always change your AP according to our goals, you could even have more than one partner for different goals.  The more people to help keep you on track, the merrier.

Happy searching!