Why Coaches Need To Study Philosophy
Achieving Mental Excellence
Fitness coaches are often told they need to be consistently learning. They need to know how to program workouts, come up with nutrition plans, maximize sports related skills, and more... or so we assume. However, part of being a coach is the insatiable curiosity to learn, this is why many courses are sold to coaches.
The job often requires one to keep learning and keep growing as the science of human health changes. Nevertheless, one subject sorely missing in the coaches toolkit is philosophy.
There are many descriptions of philosophy but I personally boil it down to the study of wisdom and human life. Philosophy asks the foundational questions related to anything and everything of human concern. Anyone can ask a philosophical question about everything.
As an example of a philosophical question related to fitness could be, what is fitness? What’s a coach? Why do we need to coach fitness? How does one become a ‘good’ coach? What describes effective coaching? We can go on and on but you get the point. The foundational questions are inherently philosophical.
Why study philosophy?
Many areas of science are useful to people ignorant of it. The fact you’re reading this right now is a testament of that usefulness. The same can be said of philosophy as there are many people ignorant of philosophical matters. Part of the issue is unlike nutrition, exercise science, or anatomy, philosophy has less certainty. In fact, we can argue philosophy is known for its uncertainty.
This uncertainty is not an inherent defect of philosophy itself but rather a way to get a person to question the foundations of their knowledge. There are many coaches, whether online or in gyms, who hold faulty assumptions or ideas without clear justification. By philosophizing we are able to explore a whole range of possible ideas and answers to our pressing questions. Perhaps there is empirical data that contradicts our previously held beliefs or maybe we come to a still incomplete but more reasonable belief.
Embracing the uncertainty of philosophy is to embrace the uncertainty of life. There are many questions we do not have answers to but as coaches we have to make decisions that best help our clients. Those decisions should be well thought out, philosophy gives us a framework to truly examine our thoughts and make decisions with deliberate reason.
The Instinctive Man
According to philosopher Bertrand Russell, the opposite of philosophizing is being an ‘instinctive man’ or instinctive person. The instinctive person is imprisoned in their own prejudices derived from habitual beliefs. This person rejects unfamiliarity, raises no questions, and sees the world with absolute certainty. They are only concerned with their narrow circle of interest so that refers to family, friends, and general desires. The instinctive person shuts out the outer world but the circle of interest is small and weak. As we have seen with the COVID-19 pandemic the outer world outside of our interest matters, for many the pandemic has laid their circle of interest in ruin.
In the coaching space the instinctive person is someone who dogmatically holds on to certain exercises, diets, training protocols, pieces of equipment, etc. These habitual beliefs ultimately do a disservice to clients and the coaches own knowledge. Coaches should philosophize to understand the justification, consideration, and clarification for their beliefs.
Doubt is liberating but dogma is arrogance. The instinctive person or coach holds on arrogantly to dogmatic ideas and practices often to appease selfish desires related to interest. The philosophizing coach is liberated from this dogma as they accept doubt. The doubt that their beliefs, stances, claims, or arguments may be mistaken. This liberates them from dogma, no one’s knowledge is completely certain and that’s okay. Changing beliefs in the face of strong evidence and compelling arguments makes coaches better not worse.
The Philosophizing Coach
The coach that studies philosophy seeks a world greater than their own immediate desires or interest as philosophy gets one to be interested in the outer world. To seek clarity towards the fundamental questions we have about our practice we should look outside ourselves. The coach that can contemplate philosophically does not see the world in clear distinct categories such as good and bad, right and wrong, friend or foe, but rather as a complex interconnected reality.
A fitness coach that can truly internalize philosophical contemplation and apply this contemplation to decision making can be dubbed a “philosophizing coach”. In an industry with ever changing information, an overflowing of data, and decisions that need to be made, the ability to think critically is essential. Studying philosophy provides the tools for this thinking.
I’ll leave off with a quote from philosopher Bertrand Russell,
“Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great…”
Philosophy allows the mind to truly be great.
Here are some recommended works to start you on your journey:
How to Teach Philosophy to Your Dog?
Link: https://amzn.to/3vimqQb
Reading Philosophy
Link: https://amzn.to/2PvMp7y
Critical Thinking Toolkit
Link: https://amzn.to/3aDN1z1
The Art of Living
Link: https://amzn.to/3xuYhYo