Wellness Complex trainer goes high on intense aerobics, three days a week
For The Vista
It’s 6 a.m. on a Monday morning, and Nick Reed is leading a group of a dozen men and women, both young and old, in a high intensity exercise program at the Cumberland Medical Center Wellness Complex in the Woodmere Mall on Main Street.
They’ll be back two more mornings a week — Wednesday and Friday.
They will be lifting weights one morning, push-ups another or running the third.
Why are they doing it at 6 a.m.?
“They all have a goal to improve their cardiovascular health by either building muscle or reducing their weight, and it’s the most convenient time for them,” Reed says. The class started out similar to the high intensity exercise programs advertised on national television channels.
“It has changed into something specifically designed for the participants,” Reed explained.
“It’s still high intensity, but it’s more a group personal training program. It ranges between 10 and 16 participants,” he said.
“It has also become a social group of sorts,” he said.
“Sometimes, we all have breakfast together,” he said.
“Right now, everyone is training to run a half-marathon (13 miles),” he said.
Reed brings expertise to the class. He has a degree in exercise physiology from Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville earned in May, 2010.
Exercise physiology is an off-shoot of the University’s exercise science program.
“We get into the mathematics of how to make muscle movement more efficient,” he explained.
When he started working on the degree, his goal was to be an athletic team trainer.
“But a team trainer is constantly on the move around the country with a team. Crossville is my home, and I like it here,” he said.
So now, after he runs his class at 6 a.m. three days a week, he spends the rest of his day as a customer service representative in the new Fairfield Glade office of Action Heating and Cooling on Peavine Road.
What’s his immediate goal.
“Turn the 6 a.m. class into a five-day-a-week operation,” he said.