It helps to have friends at the gym
Building friendships while building muscle can combat loneliness, Scott Douglas writes.
When Brad Koenig divorced and moved from Toledo, Ohio, to Ormond Beach, Fla., in 2017, two of the first things he did were sign up for a yoga class and join a running club. “The only people I knew in the area were my brother and sisterin-law,” says the former truck driver, 50. “Finding people to work out with was essential to getting my life back on track.”
Koenig did with purpose what many men, including myself, have discovered more incidentally: Exercise can be a great way to form the types of friendships that combat loneliness. The therapists and exercisers I interviewed for this article say group workouts tend to build stronger bonds than, for example, adjoining cubicles. They introduce a wider range of acquaintances.
Although loneliness can’t be defined and tracked as precisely as diseases are, it appears to be a significant problem, certainly in the United States. An AARP study released in September concluded that one in three adults 45 or older are lonely.
Research has also found that loneliness is dangerous. “Depression, anxiety, substance abuse — these are often related to loneliness,” says Laura Fredendall, a clinical psychologist in Terre Haute, Ind. And it can have a physical impact: Research on nearly half a million Brits found that those who reported more loneliness had a higher rate of heart attacks and death in the seven-year study period.
There is a distinction between being alone and lonely, according to Fredendall. Loneliness is marked by persistent isolation. “It’s feeling like you have no one to relate to, no friendships where you can confide in others,” she says. “You can be in a romantic relationship and have ‘work friends’ but still be quite lonely.”
Men might be especially at risk, says Mitchell Greene, a Pennsylvania-based clinical and sport psychologist. In addition to the social media-induced isolation that can affect us all, Greene says, “men tend to have fewer friendships than women, and are less likely than women to make social invitations. Men’s relationships tend to be more activity-based.”
Enter exercise. Or more precisely, exercising with others.
“I have several male clients who I’ve encouraged to go to group workouts,” Greene says. “It’s not that I’m telling them how to make friends. I’m steering them toward environments in which healthy social ties are more possible.” Or, as Fredendall advises some of her lonely clients: “You need exercise, anyway. Join a group or class instead of going to bars.”
Fifteen years ago, when I moved to Maine from Maryland, I sought out running companions. I wasn’t as fast a runner as in my youth, but that led to a great benefit: a much larger pool of training partners, most of whom I wouldn’t have met otherwise. In the past year, I’ve run with teens and 70-somethings, and all ages between. I run with men and women, with a variety of family situations. Our backgrounds and professions are similarly diverse. At a time when my sedentary contemporaries are more likely to see their worlds shrink, I’ve never had a larger, more eclectic social circle.
I’ve long believed that a few runs with someone builds bonds more quickly than the same amount of time spent over coffee or lunch.
“There’s something special about working out together,” says Kevin Mejia, 26, a public relations professional from Queens, N.Y. “Your guard is down. You talk about all sorts of things.”
Greene says the shared effort can significantly lower feelings of loneliness, even if the relationship never moves outside the gym. “Just finding other people with similar stories and struggles can have a huge effect,” he says.
How can you convert comrades in sweat into bosom buddies?
Some activities have a builtin mechanism for connecting with others. On group runs, for example, conversation flows with an ease I struggle to attain in my sedentary hours. Running clubs and cycling and ski shops can offer informal, welcoming gatherings of like-minded people.
Mejia found new and, in one case, old friends at the YMCA. “One of my gym buddies is someone I knew from a while back,” he says. “We reconnected when it turned out we were often there working out at the same time.”
Greene has recommended Crossfit to several male clients.
“Many of them grew up playing team sports,” he says. “Now that they’re on their own, without that structure, they’ve sort of lost their way — they’ve stopped taking care of themselves, and they’re not making new friends. Crossfit gives them an element of social encouragement and friendly competition.”
Depression, anxiety, substance abuse — these are often related to loneliness.