business & professional

Torah Teacher & Trainer

Orthodox personal trainer can help you get fit.

Louis Finkelman
Special to the Jewish News

T

hink of a personal
trainer and what do you
imagine? Did you see
a young supermodel or a jock
with awesome muscles who helps
other super-fit people sculpt their
bodies to perfection? Did you
imagine someone who looks like
a grownup version of the middle-
school bullies who made fun of
you in gym class?
That could explain why last
time you decided to get more
exercise you did not make an
appointment with a personal
trainer.
But what if the personal trainer
looked like a slight and kindly
man in his 50s, reminding you
not of a drill sergeant, but of the
IT guy in your office or the fel-
low who leads a Torah class at
Chaim Cohen, personal trainer
your synagogue? It might feel
more comfortable to get your
exercise advice from a man with
a little silver in his hair and beard. You might to Detroit in 1981 when he was 19 to study
not mind starting to work out with Chaim
Torah with his father's teacher and revered
(Kevin) Cohen, who is based in Oak Park.
mentor Rabbi Aryeh Leib Bakst.
Cohen earned a bachelor of Hebrew letters
From Torah Teacher to Trainer
degree at Rabbi Bakst's Yeshiva Gedolah and
A long complicated path led Cohen to
began teaching Torah. Eventually he would
become a certified personal trainer.
teach at many local institutions, includ-
Cohen's family moved away from Detroit
ing United Hebrew Schools, Yeshiva Beth
when he was a child, and he moved back
Yehudah, Beth Jacob School and Yeshivas

Chaim Cohen, Torah teacher

Darchei Torah.
He realized that he was not destined to
earn his living as teacher.
Cohen had married in 1985, and, as his
family grew, he needed a marketable skill,
so he earned a certificate in computer pro-
gramming at the Control Data Institute. In
1985 he began working as a systems analyst
at EDS, the digital empire built by Texas bil-

A Personal Trainer Like Mom

A

fter Sharon Green earned her
bachelor's degree in speech
communications, she worked
for the New York Jewish Community
Relations Council. Her professional
responsibility focused on combating
groups that target new immigrant
Jews for proselytizing.
Shortly after she married, Green
embarked on another career, as a stay-
at-home mother of a quickly growing
family.
Green has always devoted time to
her own exercising, though, and from
time to time people who knew about
her commitment to fitness asked her

100 September 18 • 2014

to help with their programs. In the
spring of 2000, she taught physi-
cal education and aerobics classes in
private schools for girls, emphasizing
stretching and strength training.
When she was invited to teach a
group of grandmothers how to main-
tain balance, range of motion and
"self-preservation," she began expand-
ing to the larger community, schedul-
ing meetings to help with post-partum
fitness and weight-loss goals. Over
the years, she helped children, young
adults and elderly clients follow the
prescriptions of their occupational
therapists.

It made sense for Green to get offi-
cial certification through the National
Academy of Sports Medicine, but it
was hard to fit the classes into her
busy schedule.
"We waited until my daughter turned
16 so she could help out with carpools
and errands while I went to the library
to study," she said. "Everyone pitched
in to help and even tested me on my
musculature anatomy and technique. I
couldn't have done it without them!"
A year ago Green, in her 40s,
became a certified personal trainer.
Asked about her style of oversee-
ing fitness programs for clients, she

lionaire H. Ross Perot. As the
years went by and his family
grew, he continued to rise in
the world of business informa-
tion systems. By 2008, he led
a multi-cultural international
technical support team for
Compuware, interfacing
between the businesses that
needed computer support and
the programmers who wrote
the code.
Then came the economic
meltdown of 2008; after 12
years at Compuware, the job
dried up, and Cohen still
needed to support a large fam-
ily. He had to keep working. In
the next few years, he devoted
himself to sales, selling first
shoes for diabetics and then
steel.
In 2012, JVS hired Cohen as
program director of the David
Hermelin ORT Resource
Center, designing and running
programs to help adults learn
computer skills as they returned
to the job market. The position
combined Cohen's skills with computers with
his interpersonal skills; but it lasted only 18
months, and again he was back in search of
a career.
So Cohen, at the age of 52, earned his
credentials as a certified personal trainer
(CPT) from the National Academy of Sports

Torah Teacher on page 102

observes that "raising six children
over the past 20 years has taught me
that the same things don't work for
everybody! Also, that being a firm,
gentle and encouraging coach takes
skill."
For the past 15 years, Green's hus-
band, Reuven, has served as the direc-
tor of the Kollel Institute of Greater
Detroit, a center for the study of
Jewish law and ethics, where Sharon
attends lectures when her schedule
permits.
Green currently leads classes and
offers one-on-one training to people
of all ages and ability in Oak Park,
Southfield and West Bloomfield.
She can be reached directly at
(248) 730-6006 or greensharonrll
yahoo.com .

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