Amazing Race’s Penn and Kim Holderness Reveal How Attending Couples Therapy Helped Them Win Season 33

usmagazine.com:

Building a good foundation! Penn and Kim Holderness used their time in couples therapy as an asset while competing on season 33 of The Amazing Race.“Our original strategy was to prepare as well as we could. … [We wanted] to watch as many old races as we could to try to get ourselves in the field,” Penn, 47, exclusively told Us Weekly on Monday, March 14. “As part of our preparation, we went to counseling and learned how to communicate.”Kim, 45, chimed in, noting that they didn’t go to counseling solely for the reality series.

However, it did help them take home the win, which fans saw play out during the March 2 finale.“We went to counseling because we needed to go to counseling,” Penn clarified. “But we also made agreements on the way that we were gonna talk to each other.

Like, our No. 1 goal was, ‘Let’s just not get mad at each other. Let’s find a way to reconcile that.’”The North Carolina native added, “A lot of our strategy was based around the way that we would communicate with each other.”Kim, who shares daughter Lola, 15, and son Penn Charles, 12, with Penn, called communication the couple’s “superpower” throughout the CBS competition series.“I mean, besides training, like, going upstairs with a weighted backpack and the physical training we put in, the conversations we put in ahead of time [were key],” she explained. “[We knew that] you’re gonna make mistakes [because] you’re [a] human being.

And [we focused on] how we can show each other and ourselves some grace in those moments.”The Florida native joked that the show was not a “honeymoon” — even though they walked away with a prize of more than $1 million.