During the summer of 2021 at GCP, we made a lot of changes to our internship and had 2 people working through our new internship program. We wanted to be able to invest in other aspiring coaches and help them grow. The goal of a coaching internship at GCP is to give the intern a baseline ability to be a fitness coach, and there is a lot that goes into that. We spend a lot of time teaching our interns how to lead a group training session, as that is what the bulk of our time with them consists of. But after going through the 12-week program, our interns know how to lead a group, semi-private, or personal training class. They will learn the basics of nutrition coaching, program design, and the interpersonal skills that it takes to coach. But the most important thing they will learn is to be confident in their skills and abilities as a coach.
What is a GCP Internship Like?
When an intern starts at GCP, they spend the first few weeks learning as much as they can about coaching a group training class. Depending on their schedule, they will shadow 2-4 classes a day on 3-4 days a week. This is designed to help them understand our program and how it works. It is also the time for them to ask any questions they have about absolutely anything. This is 100% a time to learn. Over the following 9-10 weeks, tasks and responsibilities are slowly added on until eventually, they are leading the entire class as the head coach. This sounds like a big task for someone with little prior coaching experience, and it is. But we spend a lot of time teaching our interns and helping them become better coaches, and they spend a lot of time soaking up all the information they can.
What do our interns learn?
The first aspect of learning in a GCP internship is the online content that we deliver through an app called MyCoach. Every week, our interns receive three lessons (articles, videos, studies, etc) with information about a wide range of topics. This includes learning foundational movement concepts, movement patterns, different types of exercise program structures, nutrition, coaching, motivation, and much more. And this content is always being updated and modified to make sure it is up to date and beneficial for our interns.
The second half of the equation is our weekly meetings. Every week, our interns have a 30-60 minute, 1-on-1 meeting with a coach, during which they discuss the topics covered in the previous week’s lessons. This is one of the most valuable times for our interns because it allows for two things. First, it gives the opportunity to review and dive deeper into the week’s content and ask questions about anything that piqued their interest. It also allows us to help our interns develop their coaching ability, whether that is helping them with something they struggle with or helping them learn or improve on a specific skill.
In addition to this weekly meeting, we spend time before or after our group training classes coaching up our interns on specific ways they can improve. We help them with things like what cues to use, how to correct movements, ways to modify movements when needed, and how to do all these things confidently. This allows us to immediately teach things that came up in the previous class and allows the interns to directly apply them to the following class.
What Do Our Interns Get?
The two main things our interns get out of their 12 weeks at GCP are foundational knowledge about coaching and a ton of experience. Foundational knowledge includes many of the things I mentioned before such as coaching cues, movement patterns, nutrition information, program design, and much more. But the more important thing that our interns receive is experience. Knowledge can be learned from books (which are very valuable), but experience only comes from doing. At GCP, we aim to take someone who may have never coached a day in their life, and by the end of 12 weeks, have them coaching a class of 15+ clients on their own. We push our interns out of their comfort zone and challenge them to do things that scare them. Never done a deadlift before? We will teach you how and give you the confidence to teach it to someone completely new to exercise. Gaining the confidence it takes to be a fitness coach is the biggest thing our interns get out of their 12 weeks GCP.
Check out these testimonials from our 2021 Summer Interns. They both worked extremely hard, and by the end of the 12 weeks, they reached their goal of coaching an entire group training session.
During my internship at GCP, I have learned more than I could have ever imagined. Not only did I gain knowledge in coaching and nutrition, but I learned how to better communicate and build relationships with people. This internship was everything I wanted and more. Not only will I be leaving with gained knowledge and confidence, but I will be leaving with people and coworkers I can genuinely call my friends.
Sydney B.
I want to thank GCP for coming alongside me and helping me gain the wisdom, knowledge, and professional understanding I need to safely and confidently coach a fitness class. Because of them, I have a greater understanding of how movement works and how it affects our everyday life.
Tianna C.
Both of these interns had different backgrounds before coming into the internship. Sydney was working towards receiving a degree in Nutrition, so we tailored certain parts of her internship to help her reach that goal. She helped with nutrition consultations and worked on “nutrition talk” videos for us. She also had never coached before but was somewhat familiar with exercise, so we helped her gain confidence in her coaching and leadership. Tianna on the other hand was not confident in many aspects of fitness, but also worked as a dance coach, so talking and leading group classes came very naturally to her. With her, we focused more on exercise-related topics to help increase her confidence in those areas. After spending 12 weeks with us, Tianna had progressed so far that she was hired as a coach here at GCP.
Like I said before, our process of developing interns works well because it has a clear structure, but can also be adapted to their specific needs and goals. We have a predetermined progression track that holds our interns accountable, and this makes it easier for us to address areas where they may need more help coaching up.
The goal of a coaching internship at GCP is to give the intern a baseline ability to be a fitness coach and lead fitness classes on their own, and that process has been shown to work. It’s not easy, but the reward is worth the challenge. Our interns build their skills through experience, education, practice, and challenging themselves. Our interns are open-minded, eager to learn, honest, committed, coachable, and they step out of their comfort zone. Remembering these things is the best way to succeed as an intern at GCP and become the best coach possible.
Keep Reading to Find Out How You Can Become an Intern at Game Changing Performance
We are always looking for interns at GCP. We have 2 internship positions open every Spring, Summer, and Fall. If you are interested, click the button below to apply.
