12 Best Couple Exercises to Celebrate Valentine’s Day

Introduction

Daily workouts and physical activity are a must for living a healthy life. Regular physical activity is crucial for optimizing the ways our body functions.

With aging, we lose muscle strength and maximum aerobic power (MAP). With exercise, aerobic capacity can be enhanced. Aerobic exercise improves our cardiovascular health. It also improves glucose tolerance in the body, boosts strength and functional sturdiness of bones, ligaments, and tendons, and helps maintain a healthy weight.

5 Reasons You Should Workout Together

Fitness experts mention that partner workouts are a great way to bond better with your significant other. Not only do they help overcome the workout boredom, but they also can:

• Help Build Intimacy – Spending quality time together is essential for an emotionally fulfilling relationship. Intimacy exercises are a great way to create emotional bonding. A study^[2] shows that joint participation in exciting physical activities improves relationship quality.
• Boost Energy Output – Exercising with your spouse or partner may help you perform better as there’s camaraderie and competition when you work out together. People tend to work harder in the presence of a partner.



• Increase Motivation – Partner workouts can significantly improve exercise motivation. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen confirm that a new exercise partner boosts exercise frequency as people get emotional and instrumental support from their companions. It is, therefore, an effective way to bolster your fitness habits should you find it difficult to stay motivated.
• Enhance Mutual Commitment – A daily fitness and exercise routine with your partner will motivate both of you to enhance your mutual commitment to a healthy, fit life together.
• Make You Happier – Exercise improves mental health. When you work out together, you both feel relaxed and happy as exercise pumps up feel-good hormones – endorphins. Motivating each other to do better and reach fitness goals creates positive emotional bonding.

12 Intimacy Exercises You Should Try This Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is just a few weeks away. With a raging pandemic crippling outdoor activities, you may have planned a cozy, romantic dinner at home. As you impress your partner with sinful, delicious recipes, here is our recipe for a fit and active life of togetherness. These easy-to-do 12 couples’ exercises will add fun and excitement and help you stay committed to your fitness goals.

1. Passing Sprints

Sprint workouts help burn more calories, boost physical fitness, and increase muscular endurance. If fat-burning and lean muscle mass is your goal, consider adding sprinting to your workout routine. Sprint training is an excellent way to increase cardiovascular fitness and boost lung power. It also promotes your overall fitness. Passing sprints is a track speed workout and can be fun if you want to mix relationship-building activities with fitness exercises.

To start, fix a distance for intervals – such as 100 m or 200 m. One partner will sprint ahead, and the partner running behind will catch up, sprinting.

2. Triceps Kickback

Triceps kickback is a strength-building exercise and can help tone triceps brachii muscles and arms, promote joint mobility, and increase functionalities of arms and shoulders. Triceps kickbacks can be added to your daily exercise routine. It can be one of the fun partner workouts using a resistance band.

To start, stand facing your partner. Bend knees slightly. Push the hip back and keep the core engaged. Hold one end of the resistance band. Ask your partner to hold the other end. If you use the right hand to hold it, ask your partner to use the left hand, so the side remains the same. Lean slightly to each other and bend your elbows 90 degrees, keeping them tight to your body. Use triceps to push the band straightening your arms. Slowly re-bend the arm, return to the 90-degree position and repeat.

3. Resistance Band Chest Press

Resistance Band Chest Press targets your chest and arms and improves chest strength, arms, and shoulders. The exercise offers similar benefits as a push-up using the band’s resistance works against the pushing motion. This strength training move can be utilized as one of the relationship-building activities with your partner.

To start, partner A holds the ends of the resistance band with the band behind them. Partner B stands behind A and holds the middle of the band. Partner A brings arms parallel to the ground, keeping elbows at a 90-degree angle. Partner A steps forward, making a slight lunge, spreads both hands away from the chest, then returns them to the starting position. Stepping away from each other creates greater tension and makes the exercise more challenging. 8-12 reps are recommended for each partner.

4. Leg Push

Pretty straightforward, a leg push could be one of the easy couples’ exercises you can try at home. It is a strength exercise and is good for toning the lower abdomen and core.

The exercise involves partner A lying on the floor with feet together. Partner B should stand upright with feet on either side of A’s head. Partner A needs to grasp the ankles for stabilizing their torso. Then, partner A raises their legs toward partner B, lifting hips. Partner B grabs the ankles and pushes the feet back to the start position without touching the ground. Continue the movement up to 10 reps.

5. Wheelbarrow Walks

Add some fun and excitement to your Valentine’s Day workout with a wheelbarrow walk. The exercise may remind you of your elementary gym classes. Wheelbarrows are excellent for strengthening and toning the muscles in your upper body and improving endurance.

During a wheelbarrow, you become the wheelbarrow, and your hands become the wheels and the body barrow. Your partner holds your legs the handles. You squeeze your abs and glutes as you walk on your hands. Your body remains straight and parallel to the ground, engaging your chest, triceps, and shoulder muscles. Perform this on unobstructed, level grounds.

6. Wheelbarrow Push-up with Squat

If you are a pro at wheelbarrow walk and wish to do some variations, consider performing wheelbarrow push-up with squat with your partner. The exercise combines the benefits of wheelbarrow with squats and push-ups. Push-ups are excellent functional exercise and are great for improving cardiovascular health. They also improve the core, build bone density, improve posture, and activate multiple muscle groups. Squats are calorie-burners and great for strengthening the legs, lower back, and core muscles.

To start, partner A gets into the high plank position, keeping the core tight, arms straight, and shoulders above the wrists. Partner B lifts A’s ankles one by one, taking A to a wheelbarrow position. A then starts push-ups as B, holding the ankles, does the squats. After doing 8-12 reps, the partners switch roles.

7. Plank and Sit-up

There’s a debate if planks are better than sit-ups or vice versa for strengthening your core. You may start your Valentine’s Day workout with both.

Planks are considered a secret to a flat stomach and 6-pack abs. Planks give you a strong stomach as they engage all the core muscles.

Sit-ups are excellent for increasing core strength. They also tighten and tone the core. As many as 10 sit-ups may help improve muscle strength in the abdominal and hip areas and improve muscle mass.

Partners can do a plank and sit-up where one partner lays on the back with slightly bended knees. Place the feet firmly on the ground. The other partner should be in a high plank position, with hands firmly over the partner’s feet. The first partner will exhale and use the core muscles for sitting up. Do 3 sets of 5 reps and increase gradually.

8. Plank Pull

Plank pulls are calisthenics and are excellent for beginners. Do it with your partner using a towel to create resistance. Plank pulls with a towel will improve core stability and upper body strength. Perform this on a smooth and hard surface.

To start, both of you get into plank positions facing each other with your shoulders over your wrists. Tight your cores and keep your bodies straight as both of you use your right hands to hold the towel. Apply even pressure while grabbing the towel. Stay in the plank position and pull the towel towards yourself.

9. Jumping Lunges

The jump lunges are a great cardiovascular exercise. They also develop and enhance lower body strength and power and improve balance, agility, and speed. Jump lunges involve many lower-body muscles simultaneously, including the glutes, calves, quadriceps, hip flexors, and hamstrings. They also stabilize muscles in the core, hips, and ankles.

Cross jump lunges are good for couples, but not without basic prep and thorough warm-ups. Partners should face each other and challenge each other to lunge. Both partners start with feet shoulder-width apart. Keep your core engaged. Move your left leg back and lower your hips. The back knee should be just above the floor. Jump as you switch your leg positions. Do 5 to 10 reps on each leg.

10. Side Plank with Rotation and Clap

A side plank is a unilateral exercise and engages the oblique muscles, rectus abdominis, serratus anterior, and back muscles. Side planks can give you great abs and strengthen your core. They are performed in a side-lying body position, and a single arm is used for lifting the body.

Do it with your partner as you start back-to-back. Partner one does the right-side plank by lying on the right side, placing the right forearm and foot on the ground. Lifts hips and keeps the core tight, and extends the left hand to meet the partner’s extended right hand. Partners lower their hands, rotating them to touch the hands again underneath the torsos. Switch sides after 8-12 reps.

11. Wall Squats with Tricep Dip

Wall squats are an easy-peasy way to engage your lower body muscles. This isometric exercise works your quadriceps, calves, glutes, and hamstrings and increases muscular endurance. Regular wall squats enhance the stability of lower back muscles and abdominal muscles.

Tricep dips are recommended for increasing arm and shoulder strength. With tricep dips, you can tone and define your upper arms and improve chest and shoulder strength.

Partner one stands on his head and back against the wall, then lowers the body into a squat position. The thighs should be parallel to the floor, and feet should be placed flat on the ground. Partner two puts both hands firmly on the partner’s knees and performs tricep dips. This set is useful for improving the core and lower body of partner one and toning the upper body of partner two. Do ten reps each.

12. Reach and Touch Plank

Reach and touch plank is a great exercise for strengthening the core. It also helps improve postures. Planks strengthen the spine, shoulders, core, glutes, and hamstrings. Planks help burn more calories by involving multiple muscle groups. It is one of the popular couples’ exercises you can try on Valentine’s Day.

Both the partners will get into the plank position. Position yourselves so that you can clap your hands. Start with extending your whole body length. Your forearms and toes will touch the floor facedown. Engage your core muscles. Shift your weight to your right palm. Stretch your left arm, and your partner will do the same, facing you and clapping your left hands together. Keep the core tight. Slowly come back to the starting position and repeat with the right hands. Try doing three sets of 10 reps.

Conclusion

Romantic dinner and decadent desserts are a part of the Valentine’s Day celebration. You can enjoy a calorie-rich V-day menu without guilt with the V-day couples’ exercises we have shared. Point to note, Valentine’s Day comes only once a year, but exercise should be a part of your daily routine as long as you are fit enough to perform them.