These Are The Best Workouts For Making Friends

There's a moment in group fitness classes that makes most introverts cringe: The instructor asks you to high-five the stranger next to you, and you suddenly revert back to middle school when you had to pick a partner for a science project, and you want to disappear. For as enjoyable as group workouts can be, sometimes the camaraderie can be awkward. (There's a whole Forever 35 podcast about this exact feeling that you should listen to.)

If this sounds like you, the thing to remember is that during pretty much any workout, everyone is focused on their own stuff. So, while it feels like everyone is judging your workout clothes or plank form, that is so not the case — they are probably worried about their own leggings and core muscles. When you're able to strip away that self-consciousness, workouts are an easy and even enjoyable way to meet people.

But not everyone at the gym is "there to make friends," so to speak, and some workouts are more social than others by nature. Whether you're an introvert or social butterfly, these are the workouts and classes you should try next if you want to make a new fitness buddy — or just feel like less of a wallflower. Who knows? You may like it so much you become a regular.