Competence 1: Sports Professional identity
Sports Professionals have a professional identity which combines sporting individuality with research and creative ability, to be used to continually develop their individual and the collective knowledge of the professional group and field. They identify and explore opportunities in dynamic contexts, seeking to establish dialogue and co-creation at various levels to create value, thereby positioning and promoting the role of Sport Professional.
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For me, my sports professional identity had already undergone some adaptions during my time at the RUG studying Human movement sciences. Here i gained a lot of theoretical knowledge about how the human body and its systems act on a daily base during all movements. During this time I regularly reflected on myself in what way I could use this knowledge in a more practical way.
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Since I started at the Hanzehogeschool I kept reflecting in this way in order to head in the direction of preference. Being a well-rounded Sports Professional with a broad set of knowledge and skills to improve sports and health in a practical way. To reach this goal my knowledge needed to be about the following subjects: anatomy of the human body, understanding of the movements, psychology of human behaviour in relation to health and sports, the management of businesses and processes and an understanding of the nutrition to fuel the healthy behaviours. A lot of these subjects have been addressed in the past and in the first year of Sport Studies and for some I choose some interesting courses and activities for my elective space. The Hanzehogeschool provided theoretical courses in which subjects such as the anatomy, movements and management during the first year of my education which was still in Dutch at that time. There was also the more practical approach towards increasing healthy behaviours during some reports and teaching/coaching activities in the form of small tasks or field work. During the first year all students were introduced to the international PAL program which is given in English and consist of a semester abroad. Since I experienced no real challenge in the Dutch program I decided follow this direction,willing to develop myself more into an international oriented professional with a broad range of knowledge and gain some experience in another environment too.
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In the second year the education was more management-oriented and I felt the need to improve myself more on the knowledge about the human body and how to get and keep someone to move forward into healthy behaviours. Therefore I chose to follow the Fitness- A trainer course and the Introduction in Sports Psychology.. Since I already have a personal interest in fitness and weightlifting this was just a logical step to take. My personal interest also helped me to pass this course with a beautiful grade and the certificate shown below. During the course a fundamental knowledge about training and coaching of fitness exercises under safe conditions. Because every client is different and has personal goals and needs this base needs to be of sufficient quality to be a Sports Professional. Besides going through anatomy, movements and exercises subjects such as behaviour and nutrition were also introduced. At that time I had a perspective about the knowledge I needed to be a well-rounded Sports Professional. This enlarged my interest in the behavioral and nutritional part. But for me this was also a sign that I was heading in the right direction since I had chosen the Introduction in Sports Psychology and PAL-program for the upcoming period.
To complete my knowledge about human behaviour the chosen elective Introduction in Sports Psychology was great addition to my set of skills to understand the important why someone moves and how to encourage healthy behaviours and state of being amongst a variety of people to get the most out of them. This really help me to assess behaviour of others and gave me in-depth theoretical information which needed to be transferred into practical task for in order to create an advice report. Shown below is the feedback in Dutch I received on the report. During this process I began to see the important relation between the mental and the physical parts of human health. For me the how and why of things we do is of create importance, because when you have this information a goal for progression thus movement can be set.
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The third year started with a semester that consisted of a part-time internship and some theoretical courses to relay on during the internship. I was an intern at 'The Kettlebell Fitnessclub', a start-up company aimed at personal and small group training. Being a start-up meant I experienced a lot of what I had learned in the management and business courses over the years. The two owners have learned me a lot about the process of starting and developing a company. A possibility for me in the future as I discovered after finishing the assignment of writing a letter to myself. For this assignment, I took a really good look at myself which was hard for me to do on certain aspects that are to me very emotional. As been said beautiful things are being created under pressure, this brought me in an open state of mind perfect for what the second semester would be about.
The second semester of my third year was all about the PAL-minor in nutrition. I head off with two fellow PAL-students towards Peniche, Portugal by car. For me this trip was as much about the knowledge I would gain regarding nutrition as about how different countries and cultures approach towards improving sports and health in general. At the end of the minor, I climbed the snowy mountain of nutritional education. My knowledge about nutrition was up to date so I could do a and I learned that there are many ways to approach not only nutrition but also sports practice, stress management and social behaviour. The best approach depends on the needs of a situation.
After all the progression I made during the three years my competence level is at least B on the Sports Professional Identity and since I'm heading over to the last year the C level is coming close.
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The fourth and last year was that of an full year internship, which I ran at sport studio MIBOSO. Here I could use all the knowledge I gained throughout the years in practice. Since MIBOSO is focussed on personal and small group training my knowledge in psychology, training and nutrition could be used all together to help clients of MIBOSO reach their goals and tackle their struggles. In the past I had trained clients of the different internships occasionally, at MIBOSO I got the opportunity to take on a few clients for regularly training sessions. This clients consisted of a mix of different genders and age-groups. In this way I could track and adjust the training sessions better towards the situation. This following the main outcome of the minor in nutrition in Portugal, it all depends on the situation, links nicely together. However, the transferring of this knowledge needed to be done with a good relation towards the surroundings and the needs from MIBOSO. The base of knowledge is of enough quality and depth to influence the regular public towards a healthier lifestyle. The knowledge of the client showed to be much lower than I initially expected. To bridge this gap I needed to make sure that it was clear for clients how they could and should influence their personal lives. The best way to do so is to take practical examples out of my own lifestyle and discuss them with the client. During training I spread my personal vision towards the client to give them a joyful experience of being active. To make sure my approach was well-received I used different methods to get feedback as well as from co-workers that worked for a longer period of time in the (personal) training industry. These are shown at the bottom of the page.
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My sports professional identity at this moment is a C, but not perfect yet. It mostly like will not be perfect as what I learned mostly throughout the previous year. Whilst working in a setting in which day by day fluctuations are common. Perfection is an aiming point not a goal. As for now I would like to develop myself more in becoming and transferring structure better and training and coaching of clients by getting certified as a personal trainer. To do so I’m researching the different possibilities and courses that help me to reach this goal.
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