Walking together. Talking more. Arguing less. A new study out of Brigham Young University finds that couples who exercise together report better communication, stronger conflict resolution, and lower levels of marital stress than couples who either exercise alone or not at all.
The study, recently published in the journal Family Relations, was led by BYU School of Family Life professor Jeremy Yorgason and co-author Ashlyn Hiatt Mildenhall, who began the project as an undergraduate researcher. According to Phys.org, researchers drew on survey data from nearly 1,700 young married couples participating in the nationally representative Couple Relationships and Transition Experiences study, known as CREATE, a BYU project that has followed newly married couples across the United States for more than a decade.
The team compared the effects of individual workouts versus physical activity performed together on three relationship outcomes: communication, conflict resolution, and marital stress. Both forms of exercise were linked to healthier marriages, but exercising together consistently showed stronger associations with positive outcomes than exercising alone.
"Our findings suggest that conjoint exercise facilitates, in a small but significant way, the ability to resolve conflict peacefully," Yorgason said. "People reported more positive outcomes in communication and conflict resolution when they exercised together."
Despite those benefits, many couples who exercise are not doing it with their spouse. Yorgason noted a gap between how many people exercise individually versus together.
"About 60% of husbands and wives in the sample said they exercised, but only about a third exercised together," Yorgason said. "That means about half the people who exercise are not exercising with their spouse. While the impact is not necessarily large, it is very consistent, which gives me confidence that it is influencing relationships in some meaningful way."
Walking was the most commonly reported form of shared exercise among couples in the study. Researchers suggest that walking in particular may be especially useful for relationships because of how naturally it lends itself to conversation.
"Out of all three outcomes, exercise had the biggest impact on communication," Mildenhall said. "That's why it was interesting that walking was the No. 1 reported exercise. It naturally provides opportunities to communicate."
That finding has practical implications. Couples in the study did not need gym memberships or elaborate equipment to see benefits. A regular walk together appears to be enough to generate measurable improvements in how couples talk to each other and handle disagreements.
Researchers also found that couples who exercised together reported better listening skills and greater feelings of being heard and supported by their spouse. The study builds on existing research showing that couples benefit from shared leisure time, but focuses specifically on physical activity as the mechanism driving relationship improvement.
The CREATE study, which has tracked newly married couples for more than a decade, continues to generate data on how early relationship habits shape long-term outcomes. Yorgason's work adds shared exercise to the list of habits that appear to matter early in a marriage.
