The Learning Journey of a Bodybuilding/Physique Sports Coach

In the past, learning how to eat or exercise properly often meant seeking advice from someone with experience or flipping through fitness magazines. Information was not as widely accessible to the general public as it is today. Now, with the abundance of online resources, the challenge has shifted from finding information to sifting through it all to discover what's truly effective.

Despite the general public's varied attitudes towards fitness and bodybuilding, one truth remains: fitness athletes and bodybuilders possess an unmatched understanding of training the body. Their techniques, while often misunderstood, are adaptable to all fitness goals, making fitness athletes and bodybuilders highly sought after as personal trainers. But is being fit—or having been fit—enough to make a great coach?

The Learning of Coaches

Different Learning Situations

Coaches gain knowledge through various learning situations, which can be categorized into three types: mediated, unmediated, and internal learning.

1. Mediated Learning Situations – Directed by someone else, these can be formal, such as certification courses, or non-formal, like regional coaching clinics.
2. Unmediated Learning Situations – Self-directed and often informal, like watching YouTube clips or reading books. While seemingly incidental, this type of learning can be just as valuable, provided it's approached with intent.
3. Internal Learning Situations – Reflective, introspective learning where a coach revisits and reorganizes prior experiences. This self-reflection allows for deeper insights and connections between past and present learning.

While all these situations are valuable, experienced coaches tend to lean more heavily on internal learning as they refine their knowledge and skills.

Different Areas of Knowledge

A coach's knowledge spans several areas, including:

• Sport-Specific Knowledge: Technical skills, drill creation, and performance analysis.
• Social Competence: Communication skills, relationship-building, and empathy.
• Self-Awareness: Understanding one's own thought processes, emotional management, and learning strategies.

These areas of knowledge overlap, but together they form the foundation for effective coaching. Over time, self-awareness drives continuous learning and development, encouraging coaches to apply new concepts into their daily practice. In today's rapidly evolving fitness industry, the fear of getting left behind is a critical motivator. The personal trainer market is oversaturated, and without continuous growth, you risk losing clients and credibility. Keeping your skills sharp is essential to stay ahead of the competition and ensure you're always at the forefront of fitness trends.

Different Levels of Learning

Coaches' learning can be categorized into five levels, progressing from surface-level understanding to deeper, transformative learning:

1. Noticing – Recognizing new information and attempting to remember it. This is where exposure to concepts begins.
2. Making Sense – Connecting related ideas and applying them in practice. Coaches begin to integrate new knowledge into their existing framework.
3. Making Meaning – Delving deeper to fully understand concepts and align them with previous knowledge.
4. Working with Meaning – Adapting and innovating upon the information learned, customizing it for specific situations.
5. Transformative Learning – Reflecting on and critically assessing one's coaching philosophy, leading to continuous growth and evolution.

Different Levels of Learning and How Athletes Benefit

Athletes, like coaches, benefit from progressing through the different levels of learning. As athletes advance, they gain more than just physical improvements—they gain a deeper understanding of their training, nutrition, and performance.

1. Noticing – Recognizing new information and attempting to remember it. This is the starting point for athletes, where exposure to new techniques and concepts begins.
2. Making Sense – Here, athletes start connecting the dots between various ideas and applying them in their own training. For example, an athlete might begin to understand how certain exercises target specific muscle groups or how nutrition affects their performance. The Personal Trainer Course is perfect for athletes at this stage, as it helps them start assembling these pieces into a cohesive understanding, turning foundational knowledge into practical skills. This course ensures that athletes aren't just following routines blindly—they're beginning to understand why they work, which is crucial for long-term success.
3. Making Meaning – Athletes now dive deeper into their learning, not just understanding what to do but why they do it. They refine their knowledge, seeing how new insights can be applied to their unique goals. The Advanced Nutrition Course is ideal for this stage, helping athletes make informed decisions that improve performance and overall well-being.
4. Working with Meaning – At this level, athletes can adapt and innovate their training routines, combining new and old knowledge to create more effective, personalized programs. This deeper understanding allows athletes to tailor their approach to meet their specific needs, leading to optimal results. The IFBB Master Coach Program is designed for athletes and coaches at this level, equipping them with the skills to work with meaning and become experts in their field.
5. Transformative Learning – The pinnacle of learning, where athletes and coaches critically reflect on their entire approach to training and competition. This stage involves a complete shift in perspective, allowing for continuous growth and evolution. Our Master Course guides individuals through this transformative process, helping them change how they think, coach, and perform.

Barriers to Learning for Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Coaches

Learning is not always a straightforward journey. Coaches, like athletes, can face several barriers that potentially hamper their progress toward efficient learning and development (Ileris, 2007). These barriers may appear during various learning situations, whether in an unmediated situation, such as a conversation with a colleague or a more structured environment like a workshop or certification course.

Types of Barriers

1. Preconception: This occurs when a coach believes they already possess the necessary knowledge, leading them to dismiss new information or learning opportunities. This type of barrier can result in missed chances for development simply because the coach assumes they already know what's being taught.

2. Emotional Barriers: Emotional factors such as stress, anxiety, or fear can inhibit learning. Emotional resistance may prevent further consideration even when a new opportunity is recognized. This is often due to the fear of what new lessons might imply for established practices or beliefs.

3. Rejection: Sometimes, a coach may deliberately choose not to learn. This could be because the information challenges their existing framework of beliefs or values, and they actively decide not to engage with the new material. Argyris (1991) demonstrated that even highly skilled professionals are not immune to these barriers. Emotional barriers or deliberate rejection can be powerful in blocking deeper learning.

Before being thoroughly considered, new learning material is often filtered through a coach's prior knowledge, beliefs, values, and previous experiences, in some cases, this filter results in immediate rejection; in others, the material is accepted and applied immediately. Both outcomes—whether the information is rejected or accepted without further reflection—fall under surface learning, where the coach merely notices or makes sense of the material. However, for deeper learning to occur, it is essential to ask more probing questions, such as: Will this work with my athletes?

Achieving Deeper Learning

To move beyond surface learning and engage in making meaning, coaches need to critically evaluate whether the new material aligns with or challenges their current practices. This reflective process helps integrate the new information into a deeper understanding of coaching.

Deeper learning, such as working with meaning or transformative learning, requires testing or adapting the new material based on its suitability for the coach's athletes or their specific coaching context. Even if the learning material is eventually rejected after being tested, the critical examination ensures that something valuable has been learned.

Strean (1995) emphasizes the importance of a coach's ability to question and adjust deeply held beliefs to prevent them from hindering development. Values and beliefs—though less visible than behaviors, thoughts, and feelings—profoundly impact coaching. They are often formed through social or cultural interactions, such as past experiences with a coach or parents during one's athletic career. Despite lacking logical grounding, these beliefs are rarely questioned and can significantly influence a coach's actions.

Examples of Limiting Values

Values such as "every practice must go flawlessly" can create anxiety when testing new approaches during training. Similarly, the belief that "a coach must always know better than their athletes" may prevent coaches from being open to new ideas or questioning their own methods. These limiting values can act as barriers to deep learning and development as coaches, underscoring the need for self-awareness and reflection to overcome them.

Conclusion

In the fast-evolving world of fitness and bodybuilding, continuous learning is essential. Coaches who want to stay ahead of the competition must recognize and address the barriers to learning through self-reflection and critical thinking. By understanding and navigating these barriers, coaches can unlock deeper levels of learning, resulting in more effective coaching and better outcomes for their athletes.