Research from the US has found evidence that working out with a partner you perceive to be stronger than yourself can spur you on to exercise for longer.
In addition to finding that partner training increased the amount of exercise done compared to solo workouts, a small study of 58 female students at Michigan State University also found that despite working out for longer, the study participants who did so did not register higher feelings of tiredness.
Study author Brandon Irwin, assistant professor of kinesiology at Kansas State University said ‘When the goal is to exercise longer, a partner who is a little better than you are can make a big difference. It gives you a goal, and may even inspire you to raise your goals.’
After undertaking a series of sessions to establish baseline data, participants were allocated indoor cycles and told they were working out with a partner in another lab that they could view on a screen. The ‘partner’ was actually a pre-recorded video. The participants were informed that their partner had performed 40 per cent better in initial sessions than they actually had done. The consequence of this was that the participants then doubled the duration of their cycle sessions compared with their pre-study baseline times. Further misinformation about their ‘partner’s’ performance in subsequent challenges also led to improved performance of between 160 and 200 per cent compared to baseline.
Putting the findings in the context of wider behaviour-modification research, Cedric Bryant, chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise said ‘Just as with eating habits, if you’re in the company of individuals who make prudent choices, you will make better choices yourself. To me, the real nice message here is that hanging out with people who model positive behaviour – in this case virtually – probably will have a positive effect on what you do as an individual.’
Source: Annals of Internal Medicine
