Working Out With My Partner Leads To Arguments!!

Till death do us part – or until we try and do a boxing session together!

If you are in a relationship & you have decided to complete a boxing workout with your significant other, chances are that its been a frustrating experience.

A survey of our members revealed that 82% of members love the opportunity to train with their partners, but a staggering (yet unsurprising) 90% of members admitted to arguing mid workout more than once!

Should we throw in the towel on partner workouts ? Not a chance!

This presents an INCREDIBLE opportunity to become more self aware, sharpen your communication skills and build a stronger relationship with your partner.

Here’s how it often plays out:

You are doing a workout together, one person wearing gloves and the other wearing pads. You are trying to focus, move, breath, and get the combinations right. Little mistakes begin to feel like a big deal, and before you know it – rather than working through the session with your partner, it feels like you are working against each other. Impatient sighs. Eye rolls. Frustrated words. They begin flying faster than the punches – and someone a workout becomes tense and an argument is just around the corner.

When a boxing session goes sideways, it actually provides deep insights into your relationship.

It is never really the BOXING, it is usually the way you have received or interpreted something that your partner has done – combined with your partners resistance to be curious about your experience in that moment, without arguing the position of their own perspective.

The Gottman Institute states simply that the key to processing an argument is to first understand what happened, to understand what went wrong.

Sharing how each of you were feeling and what could have prevented the argument  gives you an opportunity to emerge from a tense, stressful interaction with deeper understanding of your partner and clarity around how to make your relationship even stronger moving forward.

Using the “What triggered me” chart from The Gottman Institute can help you in articulating how you were in fact feeling in the moments before the argument erupted.

Honest, authentic interactions between our members reveal that these arguments are common – however, it should not be left unexamined. Taking this approach and remaining curious about the feelings that were exposed in those moments will strengthen your relationship and ensure moving forward you can enjoy a workout together too!