Terry Powers Takes On New Role As Enhance Fitness Instructor
WINONA LAKE — Already a member of the Kosciusko County YMCA, when Terry Powers decided to look for a part-time job it was not a stretch to find one working at the welcome center.
While there, she focused on helping members, signing up new members and signing people up for classes and the like.
One of her favorite perks of the job, she admitted was, “I can still come in and work out in the mornings.”
In her nearly three years working at the YMCA, she has since become an Enhance Fitness teacher. The Enhance Fitness program is designed to help keep older adults, including those with arthritis, active with the “type of exercises that relates to movements and everyday life,” she described. She began as an assistant in the class, demonstrating the modified exercises for those using a chair. After a while, “I thought maybe I could do it,” Powers claimed. “Maybe I could teach a class.”
In June she began her training to become an Enhance Fitness teacher. This included both online training and classroom training. Since it is a licensed program, Powers explained she has to use “certain weights, certain stretches but you can make up your own cardio.”
Powers also assists with the blood pressure monitoring program at the YMCA. She considers it simply another avenue of trying to help people in the community. As a member, she also participates in body sculpt and boot camp classes along with running and lifting weights.
In 2008, Powers was able to gain her first experience with a 5K when her husband’s friend suggested participating in the Sunburst race. The couple found another race in Chicago which she planned to walk. However, surrounded by large amounts of people, she began jogging and learned she enjoyed the running and racing aspect of the 5K.
Since then she has participated in innumerable 5K races as well as 10K races. She also competed in a duathlon which includes running, biking and then running again, where she developed plantar fasciitis. While she was recovering and unable to run, a friend taught her how to stay active lifting weights which Powers still enjoys.
While her son was attending Sacred Heart School, Warsaw, Powers and a few other parents organized a 5K in honor of a pastor who passed away. That 5K is now in its 10th year.
Powers grew up in De Motte before moving to Florida after graduating high school. She resided in Florida for 17 years where she met her husband, Michael, at a sporting event. They made the choice to move back to Indiana to raise their son, Shane, in 1998, so she could be closer to her parents and other family members. They now reside in Winona Lake. She was grateful to be able to be a stay at home mother for 18 years before beginning her job at the YMCA.
She volunteers as an usher at Sacred Heart Catholic Church and volunteers her time to help with the community meals. She and Michael enjoy going to sporting events. One of their favorite pastimes is attending football games with Shane at the University of Pittsburgh where he is a junior in college.