Jo Cordell-Cooper: PT wins top gong, tells of teaching transition

A specialist Hobart personal trainer who works with cancer patients, new mothers and women with auto-immune conditions started her career as a teacher. Here’s why she made the switch.

Award-winning Hobart and Geilston Bay personal trainer Jo Cordell-Cooper. Picture: Supplied

A former high-school physical education and health teacher who traded the classroom for the swimming pool and fitness studio says she made the decision to change horses midstream in response to her own changing body.

Geilston Bay’s Jo Cordell-Cooper, who taught health and phys-ed at high-schools including Clarence, Ogilvie, Huonville and Sorell in a decade-long first career, said she was 40 years’ old when she became a personal trainer.

“I was already dealing with my own body, I’d just had a baby,” the mother-of-three told the Mercury.

“A few friends had specific injuries hat were not really catered for, they were not really for rehab but they were not ready for mainstream gyms either. I could just see there was an opportunity there to specialise.

“I started with hips and hip replacements, then antenatal and post-natal, and it has grown more wholistically into blood chemistry, chronic disease, cancer, the whole spectrum of auto-immune conditions.”

It was an inspired career path: Ms Cordell-Cooper’s work with women will see her announced next week as the Tasmanian Personal Trainer of the Year by industry peak-body AusActive.

She will also be crowned Exercise Instructor of the Year and is a finalist in the Aqua Professional category.

Award-winning Hobart personal trainer Jo Cordell-Cooper. Picture: Alex Treacy

“Women come to me because they recognise they need help in the physical area but they don’t like mainstream gyms,” Ms Cordell-Cooper said.

“Quite often clients are professional women who are really busy, they’re just trying to carve out a bit of time for efficient health (measures).”

As part of this wholistic, non-mainstream approach, Ms Cordell-Cooper has constructed a studio on her property.

“That in itself is quite beautiful, people working indoors and outdoors, right in the bush with chickens around,” she said.

“It’s a really serene space to work on your health, gyms offer quite a serious workout, really tailored and high intensity, it’s a barrier to some people.”

When not in the studio, Ms Cordell-Cooper hosts aqua fitness sessions at Clarence Pool.

The award-winning personal trainer said it’s incredibly rewarding to see women who have sometimes gone through really difficult experiences succeed.

“There’s nothing sweeter than having someone come to you and say, ‘I want to play with my children or grandchildren’, and they’re at a point they can’t. The turnaround is swift and that’s a beautiful thing,” she said.

And while it would be easy to rest on her laurels, Ms Cordell-Cooper’s professional evolution continues.

“I’ve actually returned to teaching health and phys-ed part-time at Rosny College,” she said.

“It’s the circle of life.”

She will fly to Sydney to collect her awards on October 21.