I have found over the years that I'm less likely to workout when I know it's only me going. I'll think up any excuse I can not to go, but if I'm supposed to meet a friend at the gym I go. I know this is going to sound strange, but when I do go to the gym by myself, the weights seem heavier and it's not very fun. When I go with someone else and have someone to talk to or to spot each other, the workout seems to go quicker and it doesn't seem like it's work.
I don't really need a trainer because I know how to do all the exercises, and I know what I'm
supposed to be doing. I just don't do it unless I know someone else will be there and they are counting on me to be there. I tried to workout with a friend of mine, but he's got exactly the opposite body type as me. He's super thin with a very fast metabolism and he complains that he can't gain weight. Because he tries to gain bulk, he's doing little cardio, and lifting more weight with fewer reps. His whole workout is 30 minutes. Just the cardio part of my workout is longer than that. I tried hiring someone to come and workout with me, but that gets expensive pretty quick.
I've got 2 really good ideas to solve this problem and to make exercise a lot more fun. One of them is expensive, and requires me to invest a great deal of money and to find some really good programmers to join me in the project. I don't want to discuss that one until I am ready to move on it.
But the other one I've already taken steps on. I decided to put up a messageboard much like this one that will allow people to find workout partners in their area. I thought of some good names for the sight, but most of the really good names are taken. I really wanted gymbuddy.com but it's taken. I did end up getting
http://go2gym.com
Right now it's just a messageboard, but eventually I want to set it up so people can enter in what gym they belong to, or if they don't belong to a gym, they can enter kayaking, jogging, rock climbing, or some other activity. Or they can just put their home zip code to find people in their area. I'd like it to allow people to find those they feel comfortable with. For instance women probably feel more comfortable working out with other women so they don't find some creepy guy drooling over them.
I'd like to make it so you can search to find people with the same fitness goals, same bmi ratio, same gym, or a number of other categories to find someone to help you stay motivated to workout.
Anyway, I put up the site yesterday if anyone is interested or wants to check it out. I will eventually do a lot more work on the site. If I can't find pre-made modules for the site, I'll have to try to figure out how to make them myself and I'm not much of a coder. The last time I really programmed anything other than basic HTML was Pascal and C in college (1988-1991)