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AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EXERCISE PRESENTS 2002 FITNESS PROFESSIONALS OF THE YEAR
Personal Trainer, Fitness Director and Group Fitness Instructor Winners Announced at IHRSA 2002

Posted: Mar 15, 2002 in

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Mar. 18, 2002 –The American Council on Exercise (ACE), America’s Authority on Fitness, recently announced its 2002 Fitness Professionals of the Year at IHRSA 2002 in Phoenix, AZ. Awards were presented for Personal Trainer of the Year, Group Fitness Instructor of the Year and Fitness Director of the Year to publicly recognize the contribution these professionals have made to the fitness industry.

Top Honors went to Taylor-Kevin Isaacs, M.S., C.P.T., C.S.C.S., Personal Trainer of the Year, Lawrence J. Biscontini, M.A., Group Fitness Instructor of the Year and Anne Wilkinson, M.Ed., Fitness Director of the Year. Each winner received a $2,500 scholarship toward continuing education in the fitness industry.

“To work to one’s fullest ability, industriousness is essential, even more so on days when inspiration seems to be in short supply,” said Isaacs, the 2002 ACE Personal Trainer of the Year. “When enthusiasm and industriousness are combined, a force of almost unimaginable power is created.

Isaacs is a clinical exercise physiologist and instructor of Kinesiology at California State University, Northridge. He teaches therapeutic exercise for special populations and trains clients 54 hours a week, both privately and at the university’s Center of Achievement for the Physically Disabled.

“I try never to forget the macro-purpose of using equipment, of group exercise and of personal training, which is to increase the overall quality of people’s lives,” said Biscontini, the 2002 ACE Group Fitness Instructor of the Year. “When we forget that and get bogged down in the small stuff, we lose sight of the important purpose of fitness.”

Biscontini is the group exercise manager at the Golden Door Spa at Las Casitas Village in Fajardo, Puerto Rico and spends several weeks a year traveling to conduct workshops, master classes and lectures for fitness professionals. Maintaining a schedule of 32 classes per week, he teaches step, yoga, hi-lo, interval, circuit, spinning, aquatic dance, stability ball, t’ai chi and Pilates as well as hybrid classes of his own creation called Yo-Chi®.

A high school and college athlete, Anne Wilkinson, 2002 ACE Fitness Director of the Year, is the assistant director for fitness at Temple University Recreation Services in Philadelphia, Pa. Wilkinson manages the Independence Blue Cross Student Recreation Center and employs 50 student staff, 24 group fitness leaders, two graduate assistants and an intern at the 58,000-square-foot facility, which caters to Temple’s students, administrators, employees and alumni.

“My staff, and the excitement I feel for my field, keep me motivated. My participants, too—I feed off of their motivation and helping them make good lifestyle changes,” said Wilkinson.

The ACE Fitness Professional of the Year Awards were created in 1999. ACE honors fitness professionals that have excelled in the areas of client development, training techniques, successful marketing and revenue generation.

About ACE
The American Council on Exercise (ACE), America’s Authority on Fitness, is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the benefits of physical activity and protecting consumers against unsafe and ineffective fitness products and instruction. As the nation’s “workout watchdog,” ACE sponsors university-based exercise science research and testing that targets fitness products and trends. ACE sets standards for fitness professionals and is the world’s largest nonprofit fitness certifying organization. For more information on ACE and its programs, call (800) 825-3636 or log onto the ACE Web site at www.acefitness.org.