14 DAY TRIAL // Michigan State University (MSU) researchers believe that exercising together with a partner (regardless of whether they are real or virtual) can increase the effectiveness of workouts considerably.
The team found that people who trained with a virtual cycling partner were very likely to put more effort into their exercises. In fact, in some cases, the team found a 100-percent improvement in workout intensity when a moderately-more-capable cycling partner peddled alongside the test subjects.
This research was carried out by scientists with the MSU Department of Kinesiology. They say that most people tend to get poor results when exercising and working out because they quickly lose motivation. When joined by someone who fares slightly better than them, they become more ambitious.
One possible way of addressing this lack of motivation is to carry out exercises in larger groups, an approach that is not always very practical. Researchers decided to study whether a virtual partner could not elicit similar positive responses in test participants.
Women who participated in an experiment carried out at the university were likely to work out for twice as long, and cover twice the distance they normally would, when paired with the virtual partner. All the 58 women in the study were already involved with MSU physical activity courses.
They were asked to use stationary bikes, bur were divided in three groups. Members of the first exercised alongside a virtual partner on their own. The second group trained with a virtual partner as a team. The third group was asked to cycle on its own, without the virtual companion.
“Being able to more than double one’s performance is a substantial gain for those trying to increase their physical activity. These results are encouraging and suggest the gains we observed over six hour-long sessions could be sustained on a longer-term program of exercise,” says Brandon Irwin, quoted by PsychCentral.
The expert is a PhD student at MSU, and also the author of a new study detailing the findings, published in the latest online issue of the esteemed journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
Women who cycled with the virtual partner exhibited no decrease in their motivation to work out, whereas those in the third group lost their will to practice. While participants in the first group continued peddling for 22 minutes, those in the third group only did so for around 11 minutes.