Sharing Your Way To Better Results

We all have our own goals and targets we want to hit when we go to the gym. Drop weight, hit a certain number on an exercise, form a habit of going 5 times per week instead of 3 etc. Whatever your goal is, when you get there…sharing your results can have a profound effect on how you keep progressing over time.

A new study looked into the effect of social influence on exercise — and found that comparing our workout habits actually pushes us to work out even harder and more often.

We define the magnitude of peer effects or contagion in exercise behaviour as the degree to which the exercise behaviours of one’s peers change the likelihood that or extent to which one engages in those behaviours.
Nature Communications MIT Sloan

In Layman’s terms, they found that exercise is socially contagious. We are inspired by the workout patterns we observe in our friends and people we know or follow. It becomes motivational to see others results and therefore want to achieve better results for yourself. The researchers found that sharing your workout results usually pushes people to work even harder!

So what other benefits are there to sharing your progress and results with others?

It’ll help to keep you accountable and committed
It will motivate yourself and others
Helps you to get shared support from others around you
It’ll push you to challenge yourself and others
Helps you to share knowledge, how you got to where you are…inspiring others
Keep a workout history for yourself, you’ll be able to look back to see how far you’ve came

Social connections make the act of exercising a more dynamic, meaningful action.
Ornish Lifestyle Medicine

So next time you’ve hit a milestone with your training, no matter how big or small…feel confident in sharing your results with others and reap the benefits of it all!