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Aug, 2022

Meet Your New LLO instructor: Hannah Nelson

By John Davis
Community Relations Director

It didn’t take Hannah Nelson very long to realize she really enjoyed teaching a group fitness class. The time period was between “pretty instant” and a few minutes, but who is counting exactly?

“I originally wanted to do physical therapy. That’s what I went undergrad for,” said Nelson as she started to outline her educational journey. “My last semester of undergrad, I decided that I didn’t want to be in a clinic every day. I decided to get a master’s degree and figure out the rest of my life.

“I figured out I liked research, so I decided to get a PHD. By doing all of that, I started training people and started group fitness and fell in love working with people. Now I realize I like teaching and it’s progressed from there.”

Nelson grew up in small town about 30 minutes away from Martinsville, Virginia. She earned her undergraduate and master’s degree from Liberty University in Lynchburg. Her advisor at Liberty was the one who got her to Ole Miss and Oxford where she is now just a year away from securing her doctorate degree in Health and Kinesiology.

Over the past six years, Nelson has been teaching group fitness classes, and she has really enjoyed organizing the workouts, and then watching the group go through the routine together.

“That was the part that was pretty instant for me to really like,” Nelson said. “Teaching academic classes took a while.”

She has figured out that her passion is teaching those that normally don’t exercise to start exercising, and her niche is improving functional strength and mobility.

“It’s basically making people able to be stronger and be able to move better through everyday life activities,” Nelson said. “Whether that is squatting to pick up their kids playing in the yard or reaching to get the gallon of milk out of the refrigerator, I want to make them stronger in everyday life.”

Nelson said she was excited to be a part of the Leisure Lifestyles program and to be teaching Fit-n-Fun and Strength Training. She is dancing more than she thought she would be in Fit-n-Fun, but she was up for the challenge and improving.

Oxford has really made an impression on Nelson, who adopted Maggie “the cutest puppy in the world” from Oxford Animal Resource Center.

“I didn’t know how I was going to feel about Mississippi when I first decided to come down here. I knew it was going to be hot and humid and sticky and it is, but I’ve enjoyed it,” said Nelson, who loves eating at Volta and South Depot. “Oxford is a really, really cute town. It’s got a city feel but also small-town feel, kind of a mix of both places I’ve lived. Lynchburg was a bigger town and this a nice medium ground compared to where I’ve lived. I love it.”

 

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Oxford Park Commission

400 Price Street 
Oxford, Mississippi 38655

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 662-232-2380

Contact Us

Oxford Park Commission

400 Price Street 
Oxford, Mississippi 38655

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 662-232-2380

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