Dear All
Back in the day, in my youth by a quirk of fate, I ended up
as a fitness trainer; my first teaching experience was at Bellahouston Sports
Centre where I taught karate to kids. The reason I was teaching was there was
apparently a shortage of instructors, so I ended up with the task of teaching a
class and getting the kids ready to pass ‘gradings’. As it happened, I had a flair for teaching and
patience, when you teach a class of kids, you need patience.
After awhile, I ended up at Glasgow University,
and as fate would have it, a friend asked me to take her to the gym because she
didn’t feel comfortable about going alone, and since I was training at the
time, I said okay I will show you how to use the machines, and the free
weights.
Next thing I know I am knee deep in women apparently I was
thought to be brilliant, prior to coming to university, I trained in the gym at
Bellahouston in the days of Bobby Preston, who was quite a character and
lifter. The powerlifting club there was regarded as one of the best in Glasgow and beyond.
When you get serious about anything you want to find out as
much about it as possible, so as well as training and teaching a large part of
my time was spent reading up on the technical aspects of weighting. I used a
system called EDIP, which if you have been in the military this word is familiar
to you.
EDIP, Explain, Demonstrate, Immitate, Practice,
this is a tried and tested method of teaching which a lot of other systems use
a version of to impart knowledge.
After awhile, I realised that although my training partners
were regarded as pretty good, there was something else that they needed as well
to understand the core subject properly, they needed to learn how to teach
themselves. University has a wealth of IQ floating around the place but that
doesn’t always translate into practical application. My training partners were
regarded very highly in the gym due to them being the elite of the University.
Later on, I would end up getting fitness qualifications which are always useful
because certain people value the ‘piece of paper’ rather than the experience of
the individual, however I had in depth knowledge and the paper to back it up.
The biggest drawback in getting Scots involved in sport is
and always will be availability of tuition. One of the guys who I taught at
University works in London,
his time is expensive; he charges the going rate which is £50 a hour. In
council facilities and in private gyms, a basic personal trainer charge can set
you back £25 per hour, the cost of learning isn’t cheap. Most people unless
they have someone like me tend to adopt the sink or swim approach, and when
they get going for a while ask other members how to do exercises or just watch
someone and then try to copy them. This leads to a high turn over in gym
memberships as people without the access to learning and instruction simply don’t
see progress and therefore the gym becomes just another thing to them.
A lot of money has been ploughed into making Scots active, £500million
a year, but despite throwing cash at the problem, and building facilities which
some ‘ignorant’ politicians then claim is ‘world class’, most Scots claim too
embarrassed to take part in sport or worried that it’s too elite.
Too embarrassed by lack of knowledge and no real help, and
think it is too elite is also a myth as well, training is something which can
be learned, what is the first step?
Getting people to turn up!
My classes at University were always full, this is because I
as a coach in the GUSA taught for free, and I also taught students for free
elsewhere. Politicians don’t understand the problem, if they did they would
realise that facilities need instructors and instructors build the gym community,
so the pool of knowledge spreads outwards. Pumping hundreds of millions of
pounds of public cash into physical recreation and then finding out that the
number of Scots taking part in sport or recreational activity has stagnated is
an old story.
Although politicians and others talk about the creation of a
“legacy of sport” after high profile events like the 2014 Commonwealth Games,
it is the person who teaches who comes in on a Friday night in the pissing rain
to teach a class for free or paid that is the real legacy which should be
helped and supported. Holyrood’s Health and Sport Committee
This lot don’t know what they are talking about and never
did, which is why explaining anything to them is a waste of time and why there
will always be a lack of public response to the massive investment. Imagine the
amount of money that could be saved if people had the mental tools (knowledge)
to lead a healthy lifestyle, the NHS would certainly benefit as would other
services which the public access.
Convener Neil Findlay MSP said:
“We are disappointed that overall participation figures have
remained fairly stagnant over the past decade. We look forward to a response from
the Scottish Government to tell us what its plans are to increase participation
rates and to hear what lessons have been learned over the past decade".
Lessons learned?
Nil!
As well as the cost of tuition, to be decent, you have to
add in the cost of buying the equipment or clothing for the activity that you
want to engage in, sport isn’t cheap. If add in the cost of membership, you are
paying a good bit of money. Here is an example which I selected at random.
This gym charges £46 a month, and that doesn’t include
tuition however you do get a very basic induction usually done by a young
person who might be a sport science graduate who needs a job.
Holyrood is good at generating paper but when it comes to
solutions, their knowledge just isn’t there, the Sport for Everyone Phase 2
report looked into why some Scots adults were failing to achieve the Chief
Medical Office physical activity guidelines of 75 minutes of vigorous intensity
exercise a week, 150 minutes of moderate intensity or a combination of both.
Just as some people don’t have the will for different
reasons, there is a lack of political will, as to council facilities, they
cater to the lowest common denominator, much like the equipment. Although
Councils like to say their facilities are world class that is in the main just
risible.
Feedback to the committee revealed many Scots who opt out of
physical activity do so because they are too embarrassed and worried they might
“look foolish, especially in large leisure facilities or palaces of sport.
Basically as I said; no knowledge; cast adrift and left to
sink or swim, getting a trainer or coach is a serious business especially when
you can get one for free and they are half decent. A lot of time and energy is
needed to get someone trained up, it doesn’t just happen, it is planned out and
training outcomes established.
So, what is a training outcome in exercise, let’s use weight
training as an example, it could be more knowledge, lifting more weight, doing
more repetitions, cutting down rest time between ‘sets’.
Sets are a series of repetitions ranging from one rep and
upwards.
When I was at school, I wasn’t interested in sport, the
reason was the school wasn’t educated much beyond fitba and netball. The PE
teachers were old men who were basically passing their time until retirement;
they had lost their ability if they ever had it in the first place.
There is a theory that sport is elitist and is lacking in
positive role models, we see the Olympics and marvel at this, but getting
someone to the Olympics isn’t cheap, these people needed to be funded, and that
is why it is seen as elite. It seems that ‘yahoo okay ya’ mob always seem to
get to the front of the queue when the cash is handed out, not the wee guy down
the end of the street.
And it is usually the wee guy down the end of the street who
then goes onto teach others for free but generally without the support and
recognition.
The problem is knowledge, the solution is provide
instructors, the mechanisms to get that in quantities required to make an
impact aren’t developed, if you can’t get taught and access tuition, you don’t
have the same connection as those who do.
In my entire time teaching at Glasgow University
as an instructor, I wasn’t paid a penny, not even expenses but I did turn out
an elite product unlike the university paid staff that turned out an inferior
product, so much so some ended up asking my trainees for help.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
