Cycling: Exercising as a Couple

It’s the week after Valentine’s week when we have commemorated the ones we love, showered them with sweets, dewey eyes, poetic verse, an oyster or two, a glass of bubbly, or maybe a fizzy pink Shirley Temple.  However you showered your Valentine this year, consider the unfading gift that outlasts the chocolate samplers and the bouquets: exercising as a couple.

The easiest way to start exercising as a couple is to begin walking together.  The goal is 10,000 steps, but if it’s cold or if you’re tired or whatever, a simple 15-20 minute walk together is great.  Mix it up a bit.  Walk around your neighborhood, a mall, a promenade, a natural area, a park, a beach, or a hike; wear clothing with reflectors or bring a flashlight and try a night walk.  Even if you don’t have much to say, there is bound to be something during your stroll to provoke conversation.

Depending on where you live and what the weather is like, you can choose to ski together, snow-shoe together, or ice-skate together (even here in Florida, we have places to go indoor ice-skating).  Grab those bicycles that have been taking up space in your garage and start pedaling!  If you live by the water and it happens to be temperate, have a canoe ride or a tandem kayak jaunt.

If you belong to a gym, look at the group fitness schedule and find a class or two you would like to take together.  Many couples enjoy taking Yoga and/or Pilates.  I know a couple that has been Zumba’ing for years, and at least once-a-month, they take their love of dancing, hire a babysitter, go to a club, and bust out their newest moves on the dance floor!

Take your sweetheart bowling, golfing, to the batting cages, or the driving range.  Swim laps together or lift weights side by side and throw a medicine ball back and forth.  Sidle up next to each other on the cardio machines or join a co-ed sports league.  Working out together offers a couple an entirely new experience to re-connect and create memories.  You also establish a set time that forces you to spend time together, just you and your significant other.  Not the with the kids, the dog, the grandchildren.  Just you and your better half exercising as a couple.

Let Cupid’s arrow penetrate your heart and give the gift that keeps on giving; show your sweetheart how much you care beyond the Valentine card; tell her that you want to make Tuesday and Thursday gym nights. Oysters and other aphrodisiacs cannot hold a candle to the power of routine togetherness.

Let us know if you made the decision to include walking or working out to be a part of your after-Valentine’s gift that keeps on giving and how it was received.  Keep the JFT community posted on how it has affected your relationship and if you uphold your commitment keep up working out together.  What are the consequences? Be part of the conversation with JumpSport, Inc.  by following JumpSport Fitness Trampolines™  on Facebook or on Twitter @FitTrampoline.

Wishing you all a sweet time and a renewed love affair with your Valentines, your sweethearts!

Heidi Aspen Lauckhardt-Rhoades

Writer and Social Media Correspondent

Professional Fitness Instructor

thewritefit.us

FB: The Write Fit & Open Barre Happy Hour

Twitter: @ATweetFit