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How do you tell your gym buddy that you’d rather train alone from now on? Or worse, with someone else?
To buddy, or not to buddy…
Not to buddy, as far as I’m concerned. In the nearly 20 years that I’ve been training, I’ve never worked with a gym buddy. For me, the disadvantages simply don’t outweigh the benefits.
Being successful in achieving your fitness goals is mainly a matter of consistency. When it comes to training, it’s mostly about putting in the necessary hours in a well-structured schedule. For me, it’s more a matter of planning than motivation and discipline.
The will is always there for me, but not always the way. Sometimes, other priorities form obstacles in my training schedule, making a flexible plan necessary. If the planned training on Tuesday can’t happen, then Wednesday it is.
Given that aligning with my schedule can already prove difficult at times, I can’t imagine having to also align with someone else’s schedule.
Depending on someone else’s discipline and plans seems terrible to me.
Why have a gym buddy?
So my opinion is biased in this. Still, it’s not meant as a jab when I say that gym buddies can be especially useful if you’re new to fitness and bodybuilding.
‘Gym buddies are for beginners,’ might sound a bit condescending, but it’s what I often see in practice.
When you start with fitness in general and strength training in particular, a training partner can be useful. You haven’t developed the necessary routine through discipline yet and can lift each other up. That appointment you’ve made with someone else to go training can get you moving when otherwise you might have decided to just stay home.
Also, when you’re already in the gym, you can motivate each other to train harder. When you might otherwise get off the treadmill after 8 of the planned 10 minutes, you now ‘together’ finish it. If that 9th repetition on the bench press would have been the last otherwise, but the motivating voice behind you makes you squeeze out two more.
And that third extra repetition, which you couldn’t have done alone, you can now thanks to the gym buddy in their role as a spotter.
When the differences become clear
But at some point, the first cracks appear in that gym romance. More and more differences come to the surface. The cliché ‘growing apart’ can literally apply here. Mainly, I think of differences in goals and associated commitment.
You both started with the mindset of most people, ‘just getting healthier and getting a better body’. But along the way, you can get a more specific goal in mind and learn more about the necessary means to achieve that goal. For example, if you start dreaming of becoming Mr. Olympia someday, or a bikini fitness athlete with millions of followers. When you realize that you have to lead the life of a professional athlete for that. If your gym buddy still just wants to ‘get healthier and get a better body’, then it’s not going to work.
You want to go to the Champions League while your gym buddy just wants to play a game of football with a beer afterwards. But even if your gym buddy has the same ambitions, their lack of talent can cause too big of a difference. Let’s be honest: The third team of v.v. De Wherevogels is the highest achievable for some.
Gym buddy break up
But you don’t say it like that to your gym buddy:
“I’m Champions League, you’re Wherevogels”.
Or
“I don’t feel like taking the baby plates off the barbell every time. I want to be able to pull myself up with someone, not train with someone who still can’t pull themselves up”.
How do you convey such a message in a not too destructive way? Above is a nice example from practice.
As a manager, I’ve had to have ‘bad news conversations’ often enough. The first rule is: “Start with the bad news right away”.
So don’t beat around the hot whey. That’s perfectly applied here.
Then the classic: “It’s not you, it’s me”. When giving feedback, you should always keep it about yourself. “This is what happens and this is what it does to me, resulting in that”.
And then close with a nice feel-good finisher.
“You’re also much better at cardio than I am”.
