Many people, for a number of reasons, for example, due to increased workload or the birth of a baby, have to postpone their visit to the gym until very late, and sometimes train at night. Fortunately, recently such an opportunity has appeared – 24-hour gyms. One could debate for a long time about the usefulness of late training, but as popular wisdom says, you can get used to everything and begin to find its charms even in night training. So, everything is always free, no queues: treadmills, exercise machines, barbells, benches – they are waiting and just eager to be used. But these are all lyrical digressions.
This mini-regression for many continues until a few more kindly crazy fans of night sports come to the midnight gym. This is where it all begins: the weight immediately jumps by 10-20%, some kind of obsession appears: “Moscow is behind us – we cannot retreat,” even forced approaches are carried out with unusual ease and frenzy. What’s going on? Everything is very simple. A person needs competition and rivalry; they are the main driving force on the path to improvement. A person needs an “enemy”, we need someone with whom we can compare ourselves and to whom we can prove how perfect we are (to choose from: strong, smart, “cool”, etc.)
So, if competition plays such a powerful role in our development, why not use it intentionally?
Indeed, you should specifically create a competitive atmosphere and not miss a single opportunity to train with a partner. After all, you can often observe a picture: friends come to the gym, but do all the exercises separately from each other. Each of them has their own training program, and all they do together is bench press and discussion of some extraneous issues that disrupt the rhythm of training.
At this point, we need to remind you that the biggest and most public secret of bodybuilding is pair training, when two people work according to the same program. In this way, it is possible to achieve additional mobilization of internal resources and reach new sporting horizons. I would like to note that most professional athletes like to use the motivational technique of pair training, especially when preparing for competitions. Training with a partner automatically leads to increased training output and allows you to work with extraordinary intensities and weights up to 130% of “normal”. It is in fierce struggle and gnashing of teeth that strength, mass and relief are born. This is the positive side of pair training.
There are also negative sides. These include a high degree of dependence on a training partner (time and organizational aspects) and on an atmosphere of constant tension and competition, as well as very high loads, which often lead to overtraining and injury.
For those who do not strive for the Olympia podium, alternating periods of pairs and singles training will be quite normal.
With the right motivational approach, training alone is no worse than training in pairs. It’s just that “singles” should always remember the gentleman’s set: a cup of coffee, favorite music, a clear vision of goals, as well as recording and comparing results.
When training alone, you can also try a whole range of extra-effective techniques for increasing training efficiency: graduated sets, reducing rest time, varying the amplitude of exercises, cheating, performing different exercises on the same muscle group without a break, using the method of limiting the number of approaches with one-rep maximum, trisets and supersets, slow pace of exercises and other techniques for increasing the intensity and effectiveness of training.
How, ultimately, to organize the training process depends only on you and your goals. The main thing is to enjoy the workout, push the weight with enthusiasm and just be satisfied with yourself, your body and life, and the result will not be long in coming.
