JA, a middle age housewife, presented to my office for her monthly weight management visit. She had been hovering around her goal weight the past few months and recently incorporated some new tips and was pleased to have lost 5 pounds this past month. While inquiring about the different things she was doing to lose weight, she said, “I’ve started working out more regularly. I’m going to the gym and lifting with my husband.”
Time froze at that moment, the second hand on the clock slowed as my pen dropped in slow motion on the desk. JA’s face went into a half blink as the sound went into a vacuum. Immediately my thoughts drifted to the tragedy of husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, trying to play sports together, exercise together, etc. (Incidentally, girlfriends and gayfriends never seems to create conflict.) It doesn’t usually work out well, case in point, we’ve all been embarrassed, appalled, angered, and felt sorry for the battered spouse, significant other on Amazing Race every season (and that goes for both genders on that show).
I’ll admit it took me several hints short of a dumbbell up-side my head to realize that when my wife wanted to get fit, I should have stopped after getting her the shake weight and just offered to keep the 6 month old preoccupied during her workout times. It definitely was not a green flag to go all manic Jillian ala food police on her 24/7.
Now I successfully just congratulate and encourage her when she gets back from her Zoomba, pole dance, or spinning class. No longer am I asking if she’s working out today when she is falling asleep standing up after being awake all night with a cranky baby. No longer will I tell her to go faster on the elliptical or point out that she only exercised for 13 minutes. Instead I will sit back on the couch with the baby on my lap, enjoying the view of her doing the wii fit; give her a thumbs up and a smile as she sings too loudly to her MP3s. No longer will I ask her how many zingers she’s had, but instead bring her peanut butter cups or surprise her with a DQ blizzard because she deserves it.
The pen clanged and slowly bounced up and my thoughts went to the mixed-doubles couple playing next to me the other day, where the husband was barking and cussing out his poor wife who was trying her darndest and she was still apologetic. They looked like they were in their 60s so you know they’ve interacted this way their whole lives.
The clock started ticking again and JA’s voice echoed into clarity as she said,”I’m worried my arms are getting bigger. Ya know? I looked in the mirror yesterday and I stopped and said, WHOA, followed by, UH-OH.”
Me: “Uh, stop right there, I know we’ve talked about the importance of strength training as a part of your weight loss…” I gave her some detailed instructions on paper and summarized that her strength training should be for TONING and WEIGHT LOSS. Not for Serena Williams’ guns or should I say Samantha Stosur (who can flex like Nadal). For every exercise your first ‘rep’ of your first set, should be just as intense as the last ‘rep’ of your third set. Make it challenging but not difficult or hard. If you are grunting on the last few reps its too heavy.
“He says that I should do more weight, that its too easy . . .” your husband, unless he’s a certified personal trainer (who’s that a nightmare for, am I right? Eh, right?) is re-living his lifting days from college or worse—high school sports and trying to impress with the stacks of iron he is lifting. He’s showing off how he has to move the pin so fa=r after your set or he may secretly revel in making your muscles so sore you can’t lift your arms to do your hair as he points and laughs, possibly even poking at you. Or secretly, he really doesn’t want to be working out with you and hopes you’ll stop.
Spouses have to communicate their goals to get on the same page. Let your significant other know you love or hate whatever it is he is trying to introduce you to. Maybe you have to accept that ”side by side play” is okay in this instance and he doesn’t really need to ”fire” you up to finish the set, followed by a chest bump like you’re his beer buddy. You ride together to the gym and while he herniates his bench presses, you enjoy the stationary bike, singing loudly in your earphones.
I wrapped up the office visit,”You have to be clear with your husband, you want Ripa arms not Madonna muscles.”
“YES, that’s it exactly!” JA exclaimed in laughter, then stopped in a blank face, “But he won’t know what that means.”
Dr. Curvy, aka Dr. Stephen Camacho, is a family doctor practicing in the midwest. He’s a busy guy, married with 8 kids, no typo here, 8. He loves singing, dancing, reading, cooking, playing all sorts of sports, doing outdoorsy things, being artistic and creative. Every day he tries to learn or do something different to make himself a better person for others, and for himself. You can follow Dr. Curvy on twitter.
I actually disagree. I worked out for years on my own and found that going to the gym with my partner gave me the extra little push. I am in no way a gym rat I have lost 75 lbs and could lose another 20 more but for some reason going with him is a positive experience. We encourage each other but working out on our own is alright. With our busy schedules its something we can do together, we may not be working out together all the time but its a shared interest.
Meaghan, congrats on your awesome weight loss success. The original title of this piece was, “Hey Honey, want to go work out?” but the editors saw fit to change it. BUT, you actually do agree with me, as my point to this article is that spouses/significant others need to be on the same page when it come to working out, which you have luckily found. Way to go, and be well!
I agree. My husband is former army, former competitive kayaker and believes exercise should be painful and hard or it’s not fun. I am a current bookworm/nerd/doctor who slows down when she starts running. We are joining a gym together, but I’ve made it clear we will not be working out together.
I have never been successful at getting my husband to consistently exercise with me. However, when he does, we either go to the gym together and then split up, he to the weights and myself to my aerobics class. We check in with each other a couple times while we’re there to chat briefly or give a brief peck on the cheek for support. Or, we jog together.
Currently, he is not in an exercise routine and I am training to run a 10k in October. Every day that I run, I text him how it went and how far I ran. He texts me back words of encouragement and support. I love that I have positive feedback every day after I exercise.
My husband and I have ventured to the gym together…twice….maybe? He’s not much of a gym person. So I run as frequently as I can, while he watches our little guy (I’m more serious about running than he is about biking). And sometimes, he rides while I run, or we bike together. But he’s not a competitive person, so I mainly get a lot of encouragement. I can recall playing tennis with one ex-boyfriend. Now, I’m not much of a tennis player, but he was super-insecure and super-competitive, so he wouldn’t hear of not playing for points. Then he got mad when I was not hitting the ball directly to him, but he was having to run for it. I did not reply “That’s the point of the game, dipshit” (which I totally should have), but said that I wasn’t doing it on purpose, and he began to “imitate” me. (This is the same guy who, when we were playing Jeopardy on the computer, made me wait to ring in on the questions, because he was angry that I could read so much faster than he could, and would buzz in before he’d had a chance to finish the clue. I think the biggest mystery here is why I wasted a year of my twenties on this guy.) So I think the success of the couples workout depends on the individuals involved.
My husband and I did work out together for a while after work. We stopped because I couldn’t stand getting home after this and still having to cook dinner and do all the other various chores that are required. My husband isn’t super competitive (in fact, I’m probably more competitive than him) but at the gym we did our own things.
I have way more limits on what I can do than him so now he goes home and cooks dinner so we eat healthly and I go to the gym. He will take the dogs for a walk after dinner sometimes when the temperature is nice.
Something must be working, since I have lost 40lbs since December.
I never get tired of hearing good news, keep up the good work Cindy.
I completely agree with this. My husband used to be a certified personal trainer and he really likes helping people. He works out every day and will until the day he dies (unless he gets hurt). I went through a period after our daughter was born when I stopped working out and gained quite a bit of weight (after losing almost all the baby weight). When I wanted to start working out again, he was very encouraging – “you just have to make it through the doors” he would say.
Well, the first day I made it through the doors and that evening, told him what I had done and what I planned on doing, he immediately jumped on what HE though I needed to be doing in order to really be doing it right. After listening for like 10 minutes, I lost it. I asked him what happened to “just make it through the doors”? I’ve gone one day and am trying but I’m doing it wrong – after one day? Because it’s not the way he would do it? I basically told him to f* off and stopped going to the gym-after one day. It was a couple more years before I finally got my act together. Now I have friends that I do stuff with and even if we go to classes together, we’re not really working out together. And occassionally we will go on a run/bike ride/hike together but his definiation of together is doing the same activity from the same starting point in the same general area at the same time. He never waits for me. And I’m totally ok with that. It’s how I stay (almost) sane.
Now, if need his help with something (because he is very helpful & knows what he’s doing), I am very specific with what I want him to help me with and beyond that, if we are in the gym together we are not working out together. It’s not a good thing for our marriage. It’s also not something worth fighting about.
Glad you made it back to the gym!
I am a personal trainer and have a few husband and wife teams (we train in parks, not in a gym). It is amazing to watch how they encourage each other.
That being said, I have tried to train my husband and it is a nightmare. Every couple is different.
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