From the Avon News: "From the Battlefield to the Gym: Iraq veteran now a personal trainer"

Check out this article in the Avon News about our newest personal trainer, Lorren Pogson!!

From the battlefield to the gym: Iraq veteran now a personal trainer

http://www.foothillsmediagroup.com/articles/2012/07/03/avon/news/doc4fee4589d6272902963935.txt
Friday, June 29, 2012
BY SCOT ALLYN
For the Avon News
AVON — Lorren Pogson has good credentials for leading the boot camp at Snap Fitness, 260 Main St., Avon.

The 33-year-old Farmington woman is a U.S. Army veteran of the Iraq war, and puts her military background into her new career as a personal trainer and instructor.

But Pogson is also a farmer, with her own farm stand on Meadow Road, Farmington, and a graduate student working toward a master’s of business adminstration in project management.

Pogson was just hired at Snap Fitness to be a personal trainer and run the boot camp, a one-hour class starting at 6 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

“I take everything I’ve learned and put it into an hour, without damaging anyone,” she said. “We went outside last week and walked uphill backwards carrying medicine balls. I also incorporate jump-roping and Spiderman push-ups, with the legs pulled up to the side one at a time between pushups. The class includes cardio and strength training, sprints and high-intensity interval training, to get the heart rate up.”

Students in the class range from their mid-20s to early 60s, she said.

Josh Livingston, owner of Snap Fitness Avon, said he was impressed with Pogson from the start.

“We’ve had a few female trainers come and go,” said Livingston. “It’s tough to keep the good ones. So when I met Lorren, discovered she was a personl trainer, and learned about her military background, I knew she’d be right for our club. She has a great personality and can really relate to our members.”

Pogson grew up working on her parents’ Mountain View Farm in Farmington, where the family grows sweet corn, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, herbs and specialty varieties of heirloom tomatoes and other vegetables. In the fall, they grow pumpkins and winter squash. Her parents have their own produce stand, and Pogson owns Maizey’s Market farm stand, named for her black Labrador retreiver.

“I really believe in what I’m doing,” Pogson said. “I believe in moving around and eating well. It propagates a good environment.”

Pogson’s interest in the environment has inspired her to serve on the Farmington Inland Wetlands Commission.

“Applicants who want to develop a site make proposals about how to handle wetlands, if they are on or bordering the property,” she said. “Sometimes we modify an application for the best interest of the environment. If you’re a little careful now, you put less maintenance into it down the road, just like your body.”

While working with her personal training clients, Pogson said she specializes in maximizing their potential.

“Everyone can do a lot more than they’re already doing,” she said. “Even with injuries or other physical limitations.”

Although she did not play sports in high school or college, Pogson said she has always been interested in staying fit.

“Aspects of farming develop your body,” she said. “I recently loaded bales of straw on trailers and stacked it. I probably moved 700 to 800 bales of straw, averaging 40 pounds each.”

After the growing season has run its course, she’ll return to the fields for picking time.

“That means squatting for hours, loading boxes with tomatoes until they weigh 30 to 40 pounds,” she said. “It’s just like coming into the gym and lifting weights, except I’m out in the sunshine, sweating, and getting dirty.”

The link between the world’s health and personal health is very real for Pogson, who hopes to own and operate a farm-based retreat someday.

“It would be a place where people can come for fresh food, work in the fields for their exercise routine, and incorporate it with fitness training,” she said.

Pogson was a chemical officer in Iraq, where she served as a second lieutenant, before leaving military service as a captain. As a chemical officer, she studied chemical, biological and nuclear warfare, and outfitted her fellow soldiers with protective gear appropriate for the threats they faced in battle.

“We were one of the first American units known to be in Kuwait,” before hostilities began in Iraq, Pogson said. “When we got the word, we packed up and drove across the border into Iraq.”

Pogson is also a past commander of the Farmington Post No. 10361 of Veterans of Foreign Wars.

For more information, visit www.snapfitnessavon.com or call 860-581-4014.

Scot Allyn can be reached by e-mail at sallyn@registercitizen.com or by phone at 860-489-3121, Ext. 335. Visit us online at foothillsmediagroup.com, or on facebook.com/foothillsmediagroup.