1.
Post-Workout Sex
Good or Bad? The best, sex is better after a workout.
How Good: ☺☺☺☺☺
This isn’t just a locker room urban legend. This is backed up by scientific fact. Enzymes stimulate your lady’s Sympathetic Nervous System when she works out. This stimulation continues post-workout. So, be sure to be ready and available when your girl gets back from the gym. Science tells us that you won’t regret it. The sex may potentially be even better if you head to the gym with your lady. After your workout, you will experience increased levels of testosterone – the primary male sex hormone – for up to an hour. So, again, take advantage.
2.
Jealousy
Good or Bad? Bad
How Bad: ☹☹☹
But, jealousy can afflict the best of us. If you are dating a girl you perceive to be “out of your league,” jealousy may rear it’s ugly head. If your girl is a frequent flyer at the gym, that likely means that she is surrounded by attractive men every evening while wearing relatively little clothing for hours at a time.
If you start feeling the pangs of jealousy, first work through your feelings, and admit that they are about your negative self-image. Then, get over yourself and get to the gym. If your girl looks that good, she deserves a man who is in shape. Once you get you get your body in shape, that jealousy will likely magically subside.
3.
Motivation
Good or Bad? Good
How Good: ☺☺
She doesn’t necessarily have to spot you, and you certainly don’t have to keep the same pace as you make your way through your cross-country run. But, there is no better motivation to get your off of the couch and onto the bench than the gentle peer pressure of your domestic partner. If you’re so committed to laziness that you can watch your lover come home after a long day and hit the gym while you stay planted firmly on the couch, then there may be no helping you.
4.
Scheduling
Good or Bad? Bad, fitness is a commitment.
How Bad: ☹☹
Between getting ready, making the drive to the gym, working out, and coming home, a good workout can eat up several hours of your time. That may not seem like a lot, but when you factor in the work day, classes, part-time jobs, errands, and other commitments, you may start to feel like the time you should be spending together is being spent at the gym. Of course, her gym habits aren’t the problem, but her workout could present another scheduling hurdle in an already full set of calendars. It may be annoying to pull out your iCal or build a Google Doc to keep your schedules in sync, but if the relationship involves two busy partners, it make take some real calendar juggling to make it work.
5.
Athletic Appreciation
Good or Bad? Very good, finding a girl who likes sports as much as you do is rare.
How Good: ☺☺☺☺
There are some serious female sports fans out there, but professional sports fandom remains a male dominated hobby. If your girl is into any type of athletics, from gymnastics to soccer to curling, she will be more likely to appreciate sports of all kinds. That may just mean that she’ll be interested in watching the game with you and even have some insights on the action that you wouldn’t have thought of. It is a rare and special girl who wants to watch football all day on a Sunday, but an athletic girl might be willing to hang out and watch your favorite team with you.
6.
She’s Competitive
Good or Bad? There are different breeds of athleticism.
How Bad: ☹
If your lady is a yoga fanatic or a long distance runner, she may not have the eye of the tiger. But, if she grew up participating competitive team sports, she may not be someone who takes losing well. Anyone who plays sports above a certain level has to have something more than natural gifts. If your girl played sports from late high-school onward, she likely has a drive and tenacity that can be downright intimidating. Some people are able to separate this drive on the field from their lives off. Others aren’t so good at it. You’ll find out which type of competitor your girl is the first time you play Monopoly or Risk. If she flips out when she lands on a hoteled Park Place, you may want to have a talk about managing her competitive edge sooner than later.
7.
Stress Relief
Good or Bad? Good, Relationships suffer when one or more partners brings their stress, anger, and general bullshit home from work.
How Good: ☺☺☺
One of the best things about a good workout is that it provides an outlet for that left over stress from the work day. You know how it feels to take a long run after a hard day. You know just how fulfilling it can be to bench press away your anger at that smarmy asshole in accounting. If your girl understands the healing powers of a good workout, your life is going to be that much easier for the duration of your relationship.
8.
Early Mornings
Good or Bad? Bad. Dedicated athletes are often dedicated to getting up at the ass crack of dawn.
How Bad: ☹☹☹
Dedicated athletes are often dedicated to getting up at the ass crack of dawn. This is something I’ve never understood personally, but some people love rising with the sun. For some reason, many workout nuts believe that the burn feels just that much better at five in the morning. If you don’t work on those same biorhythms, be prepared to be woken up by the cranky sounds of your girl putting on tights and running shoes at an ungodly hour. Prepare for the frantic tired tossing of items across the room when she can’t find her shoes. Prepare for frustrated breaths emanating from a body that won’t stretch quite as much as the owner would like. And don’t be surprised if you fall back asleep just as she arrives back home, jumps in the shower. and starts her morning routine, waking you up again.
9.
No Junk Food In the House
Good or Bad? This may appear to be in the “worst” category, as it feels criminal to separate a man from his Doritos and Twinkies.
How Good: ☺☺
However, you should be honest with yourself, no matter how much you may want your chili cheese fries, you don’t need chili cheese fries. If your lady treats her body like a high-octane temple, then she likely won’t allow anything but the highest grade fuel in the house. This means that you’ll have to go out of your way and down the block to the 7-11 if you absolutely must have a late night rendezvous with Ben and Jerry.
Of course, if you do decide to get some junk food, you won’t have to worry about your girl eating all of it if she keeps a tight nutrition regimen. Another bonus.
10.
Managing Disappointment
Good or Bad? Bad
How Bad: ☹☹☹
If your girl is extremely athletic, as we already stated, she is probably pretty competitive. Competitive people have competitions and competitions have winners and losers. Just as I pity anyone who has to shoulder the burden of dating one of my fellow writerly friends the night they receive a rejection letter, it is no fun being the boyfriend of someone who missed medaling by a tenth of a second. Whether your girl is coming off of a bitterly disappointing Olympic trial or a crushing defeat in the community softball league, losing can be rough. This is when you have to be a shoulder to cry and/or sweat on for your athletic lover. Everyone is competitive about something. It just so happens that your girlfriend is competitive about something completely objective, which makes losing completely painful.
Don’t worry though, you’ll get through it. And then hopefully you can get back to the post-workout sex you haven’t stopped thinking about since you read the first slide.
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