Jackson Free Press

Personal trainer Lauren Smith, 30, recalls one client, Pam Swanson, whom she worked with about three years ago. Swanson had diabetes and had to have her leg amputated and because of that, she wore a prosthetic leg. For two months, Smith helped her use a bosu ball. They worked on Swanson being able to balance on it without Smith's help. For weeks, they practiced the exercise with no success. Finally, one session, Swanson was able to hold her weight and balance on the ball by herself; she started crying when she realized her achievement.

Seeing how much a relatively small action—just balancing—meant to her client, Smith nearly started crying along with her.

"You kind of realize this is really important to people and impactful," Smith says.

As a personal trainer at the Deville Plaza YMCA, her job is to encourage her clients during their workouts and hold them accountable for achieving results, she says. But it is not a career path that Smith was always certain about.

The Jackson native graduated from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor's degree in dietetics and nutrition in 2007. After an internship in the field at Central Mississippi Medical Center that summer, she realized it was not her calling. Smith spent a few years after graduation working in sales and other jobs. Knowing that she had always been into fitness and healthy eating, a friend, Ken Simmons Jr., told Smith about an open female trainer position at his father Ken Simmons Sr.'s gym, Energy in Motion. "I knew I did know a lot about working out just from doing it on my own and growing up playing sports," Smith says. "... It was just a matter of doing it."

So, in 2010, she took the next step and received her personal trainer certification from the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America. She worked at his gym for two and a half years before moving to her position as a trainer at the YMCA in 2013.

The relationships Smith has with her clients is her favorite part of her job.

"A lot of them have been coming for three or four years," she says. "I know them; I know their family. I know kind of all about what's going on with them and interacting with them." Smith's own mother, Connie Smith, was her first client and still trains with her. Smith's family is supportive of her many fitness pursuits. Even in her free time, she cannot escape physical activity. She participates in the United States Tennis Association and plays tennis throughout the state. "Anytime I can play something, and there's some kind of competition in it, I'm probably going to be interested," Smith says.

On Mississippi having more obese people than any other state, Smith says: "I hate that's how people see us. ... There's a lot more activity, especially in Jackson, than people give us credit for." Smith works to prove those beliefs wrong both in and outside of the gym.