Some people say we’re a nightmare to live or socialise with, but nevertheless, I’ve been a teacher for some time now, for my sins.

During this time, I’ve come across a wide range of educational contexts, from primary school classrooms to college lecture halls, and from the academic education of children and young people to the vocational training of young and older adults.

For teachers and learners alike, each scenario typically represents a unique learning environment and set of distinct challenges, but what about the gym?

I’ve spent plenty of time in gyms too, but what has the gym got to do with classrooms and lecture halls? Is there indeed any place at all in the gym for the teacher or learner amid the clanging of weights, hum of treadmill motors and glistening, sweat-glazed figures and physiques?

It’s ironic, because the gym is actually one of the most learning-rich environments I’ve ever been in, and although it might be somewhat shameful to admit, the most effective teaching and learning I’ve ever seen or participated in has occurred off the clock, outside the classroom, and not against payment.

When we think of learning, we tend to imagine classrooms and blackboards or whiteboards. Whether we teachers like to admit it or not, this type of formal learning isn’t the be all and end all, because people learn stuff all the time, with or without our help. Every experience and challenge teaches us something new about the world we live in or the topics or skills that interest us. As fitness enthusiasts can easily prove the world over, non-formal and informal forms of learning can pack quite an educational punch too.

When a newcomer to the weird and wonderful world of commercial fitness first sets foot in a gym, there are many rules both written and unwritten that must be learned before full integration with the more experienced resident gym rats and bunnies may be achieved. Little things, like how to dress, how to use the equipment, how to perform the exercises correctly, how to observe the health and safety regulations of the facility, how to harmoniously co-exercise with your fellow gym users without causing offence or dispute, must all be understood before the newcomer can consider themselves familiar with this new and daunting environment.

Some of this knowledge will be provided by fitness professionals. Gym instructors are the unsung heroes of adult education and lifelong learning. Buzzwords in education indeed, but while we theorise and research these fancy ideas, gym instructors are in the trenches effectively teaching people from an incredibly diverse range of backgrounds.

From teenagers to retirees, lawyers to labourers, professors to secondary school students, high society to a little rough around the edges, good gym instructors can teach whoever walks in through the gym door whatever they need to know about fitness to achieve their goals.

Gym instructors are the unsung heroes of adult education and lifelong learning

We haven’t even skimmed the surface yet however, because most avid gym users will go on to learn a whole lot more than what their instructor teaches them. As a fervent interest in increasing strength and fitness develops, a whole world of educational possibilities opens up, and caters for the enthusiastic learner in a way most formal educators could only dream of. As gym users become more motivated to reach their goals, they discover an inexhaustible wealth of knowledge online about training programmes, methods, techniques and exercises.

One of the challenges teachers face in formal settings is catering for the various learning styles people tend to possess. Some of us learn by watching, some by reading and listening and others by actually doing. Whatever the style, learning about fitness seems to cater for it all. Online videos and images, text-rich tutorials, interactive forums and social media groups all present the learner with unprecedented visual and auditory learning stimuli covering all aspects of anatomy, physiology, kinesiology and training methodologies.

We even see plenty of peer learning taking place, as gym users communicate and learn from each other. Fellow experienced gym users also take on a mentoring role as they share some of the knowledge they have amassed. When all is said and done, everything learned is applied to the ultimate practical context when the learner next hits the gym; the actual workout could even be described as the third learning modality; the kinesthetic stimulus, learning by doing.

Whatever it is you are implementing during a given workout, you can experiment with everything you’ve read and seen. Of course there’s a word for that too: research. Even in the field of exercise science, our best researchers sometimes lag behind in proving what the athletes and fitness enthusiasts on the frontline have paved the way with and instinctively learned years before through their own efforts, disappointments and successes.

So whatever your goals happen to be and however you tend to learn best, remember that there are a wealth of learning experiences at your finger tips if you choose to improve your health and wellness and set some fitness goals for yourself.

Your success will partly depend on how well you can manage your learning. Choose your mentors carefully, discuss and thrash out training ideas with others, exercise careful analysis and evaluation of material you encounter online and reflect on your performance and results so you can modify and streamline your efforts.

matthew.muscat.inglott@mcast.edu.mt