Gyms and the Montessori method

Gym classes, like conventional schools, are "one size fits all". Personal training can be expensive for members. Can gyms learn from the way montessori schools are structured to coach their members?

I might have written about this here before - I go to a gym which is dominated by group classes. They have excellent equipment - squat racks and barbells and plates and dumbbells and kettlebells, and the group classes occasionally involve heavy lifting (like squats and deadlifts). Still - the dominant method of exercise (and I’m purposely saying “exercise” here, rather than “training”) there is the group class.

Of course, they allow you to go there and use the equipment by yourself (if you pay the same fee that you would if you wanted the class). On most days that’s what I do - occupy my favourite corner squat rack, and spend an hour squatting and pressing and benching and deadlifting.

On some days, though, I look at the class program (written on a whiteboard) and decide to go for some variety. Sometimes I enjoy it. Most days I do one or two exercises in the program and get back to my lifting. And on days like today I feel really underwhelmed - for having spent time in the gym without really having lifted heavy.

The problem with gym classes is that it’s one size fits all. I mean - they make you pick up different weights based on your size and ability, but everyone, irrespective of age and sex and body type and (most importantly) goals, is asked to do the same set of exercises. And if the program for the day is not something that interests you, you have a tough time.

I’m reminded of my own school, where I was constantly bored because I, for whatever reason, used to be ahead of the class. And the class was simply defined as “set of kids born in 1982” (roughly speaking), with no regard for what we already knew or how we learnt or how we wanted to be taught or what we were interested in. And if you think about it, that is how all “conventional” schools are designed.

Partial personalisation

The trigger for this post was a tweet I saw yesterday (I follow a few lifting coaches there). Now I’m not able to locate that but a few American coaches were talking about personal training, and how to make it work financially. And from what I remember, they were talking about the only way to make it work being to simultaneously coach people in small groups.

And that reminded me of how my daughter learns. She goes to a montessori school where the teaching pedagogy can be broadly described as “lessons are delivered by the ‘montessori adults’ either 1-1 or in very small groups (of <= 3 kids), and the rest of the kids do their own work”.

Because the teaching is done individually (more common in the 3-6 age group) or in small groups (more common for 6-12 year olds), the children get lessons based on their current understanding, goals and interests, and not because they happened to be of a particular age on that day. And what allows for this personalisation (while keeping costs reasonable - though this school is more expensive than good “conventional schools” in this part of town) is that the rest of the kids are “doing their own work” at the time.

When I was reading the conversation between the coaches yesterday, I started thinking about the Montessori method and its application to fitness classes. The problem with classes like the ones in my gym is that they are “one size fits all”. Each member has their own goals and levels, and bucketing them all into one class is not great.

Instead, what if coaches were to “individually coach 10% of the members at any point in time, while the rest 90% do their own thing”? Like it happens in a montessori school, this personalised coaching can happen by approximate rotation (depending on demand).

Then again, the Montessori system works because children have been trained that way - they know what and how to do on their own even if there is no adult around. And my suspicion is that the reason the gym class exists is that a lot of members simply don’t know what to do there unless told (my gym doesn’t have any cables or “machines”. there is ONE treadmill). And so the only way to coach them is to put them into one size fits all classes!

I guess rather than trying to figure out how to make those classes “better”, I should just simply use the equipment and lift!