A lot of athletes and coaches hate on group fitness. They either feel that they are athletically superior to the “gen pop” you often see at group classes, or they are so infatuated with their own coaching style that they have to assume the worst of any group class, without taking the time to see what it’s all about; what kind of person it could benefit, what kind of workout it really is, or how it could be integrated into a fun program that values of social interaction.
Not all group fitness classes are created equal, but even it’s important to recognize that they all have something extremely important in common: movement. At the end of the day, people need to move more and find enjoyment in what they do. In fact, finding that a workout is fun is closely linked with intrinsic motivation and the long term success of a program, especially for weight loss.
I once saw a twerk-shop being taught at the local gym, something that could easily get side eyed. Upon closer look, the trainer was actually an accomplished lifter & dancer who was developing a lot of strength, mobility, and kinesthetic intelligence/awareness in a format that was engaging and fun - the participants clearly loved it, something I can’t say about everyone else working through their lifting session.
Social Motivation: Good and Bad.
Even if the group workout is identical to what you would have done otherwise, social motivation can play a huge role in the overall effect of working out in a group environment. Even if you aren’t competitive (or don’t claim to be), the simple presence of other humans tends to push athlete’s to perform harder. For the general population who may not workout often or struggle with motivation to work at a high intensity, this social motivation can be enormously positive. At the same time, it may push athletes to give max effort too often, when they’d better off cruising through a class at low intensity for fun or recovery, not adding even more intense work onto their already challenging schedule. If you are an athlete that follows a training program but wants to incorporate group fitness into your training, be sure you’re accounting for intensity and be willing to take some classes at a low intensity, even if it means you don’t “win the workout”.
Dealing with Uncertainty
Being able to handle uncertainty is a valuable skill in any athletic endeavor. In competitive road or track racing, you never know when you will have to make an unexpected surge to stick with the pack or break away. In trail running, you never really know how tough a course is going to be (and therefore, how long of a race it actually is), so being able to handle uncertainty in terms of workout duration to develop better internal pacing skills is important.
In obstacle racing, you never know what obstacles you’ll face and you have even less certainty when it comes to event duration. Most OCR’s give an approximate distance, have unknown obstacles, and you face unknown terrain.; you never know whether you’ll be racing for 60 minutes, or 90 minutes. In some cases, it could be even worse. At the inaugural Spartan Race World Championships in 2011, no one had any idea how tough the Vermont mountains would prove to be. Favored to win, OCR celebrity, Hobie Call, was talking with me at the starting line about the event, estimating it wouldn’t take more than about 90 minutes. Over 3 hours later, he had bonked hard and so had I. I finished in 11th place. The athletes who finished in the top 10 were certainly better at handling uncertainty and adjusting their strategy on the fly.
In group fitness classes, the workout details are generally a surprise and it’s probably something that you have never done before (at least not exactly), so every time you enter a class like this, your pacing and your strategy has to be adaptable. You never know when the spin instructor is going to add another interval, or you might not realize until 10 minutes into a 20 minute METCON that the weight you chose to use for DB thrusters was too heavy. Anything that teaches you to deal with change and the unexpected is a definite plus.
Education and Inspiration
Even if you primarily train on your own, whether under the guidance of a coach or not, group fitness classes expose you to new ideas and training methodologies. It puts you in front of new coaches and trainers that have never seen you before, and it forces you to try things that you may have never done before. Even if you work with a coach and you’ve done a million pull-ups in your athletic career, the trainer at a group class might mention a cue or corrective that just clicks. They might make a subtle adjustment on a move that you’ve done before but never tried a slightly different way.
Of course, not every group fitness instructor is excellent - that’s true of any industry. However, it always puts you into a position to learn, whether it’s a positive experience or a negative one. If you’re a coach, you might learn new ways to cue an exercise, or you might observe that a certain cue used by the coach simply isn’t working. Allow yourself to appreciate different training methodologies and consider how you could implement novel exercises or ideas into your own training or into your client’s programming.
Even if group fitness classes isn’t as good as one-on-one, bashing other ideas or training programs never helps anything. Seek to understand their purpose and their value. Learn what you can, ignore the rest, and have some fun.