Exercising with partners provides additional motivation and adds an important social component to keep you engaged in your exercise program.
There are days when it's easier to do something other than exercise, or you'd rather sit on the couch than go for a run. It's not that you don’t want to exercise; you just need a little nudge from a buddy. Even highly motivated professionals benefit from training partners because they make you accountable for your workouts: Someone waiting for you at the park or the gym will make you shut down the computer or drag you out of bed.
Optimal performance often depends on involving the perfect number of people. In business, a team that's too big struggles to make decisions, and a team that's too small doesn’t have the brain power to cover all the angles. Likewise, for training groups, involving too many people makes it too complicated to coordinate schedules and preferences. But training alone makes it too easy to put exercise on the back burner.
I’ve found that three is the perfect number for forming a reliable training group. A triad ensures that if one person can’t make it, there’s still one person depending on you to show up. It’s not imperative that all three of you meet up to do the same workout, just that you commit to starting and finishing together. The importance of a third person is evident even in an environment as pro-exercise as the Carmichael Training Systems office. We have a company policy that encourages people to add an additional hour to their lunch break up to three times each week so they can fit their workouts into their workdays. Even with that kind of flexibility, I noticed that several of my employees were struggling to stick with their fitness programs, so I encouraged them to establish training triads.
Here’s an example from my 2007 book, 5 Essentials for a Winning Life:
“Jim Rutberg, Jay T. Kearney, and Jason Koop are an example of one such triad. Jim is the Editorial Director, Jay T. is the Vice President of Sports Science Services, and Jason is the Director of Regional Coaches (coaches who work outside of our Colorado Springs office). Jim kept signing up for endurance events, like the Leadville 100 mountain bike race, and then completing a fraction of the necessary training. He went and completed the events anyway, but he suffered more than he needed to in the process. When just he and Jason were training partners, Jim only had a little more success sticking with his training. Whenever Jason had to miss a session, Jim missed it too. But adding Jay T. to the team created a training triad, and the chances that at least two people were available for a training session increased by 100%. In the winter and spring of 2006, Jim recorded more workout time than he had over the previous two years, and it showed in the faster paces he was able to maintain during training sessions and competitions.“
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Jay T. Kearney has since returned to work with the US Olympic Committee, and was replaced in the triad by CTS Premier Coach Jim Lehman. And 2007 turned out to be the year Rutty finished the Leadville 100 in less than 9 hours. Lehman finished 8th overall in 2008. And Jason Koop? He finished 13th overall in the 2008 Leadville 100 Run. Training triads work. Even for athletes of differing fitness levels and disciplines because they keep everyone engaged and committed to training.