JOINT-BASE SAN ANTONIO-Randolph, Texas -- Incorporating a challenging, comprehensive physical fitness routine into your daily life is not unusual. Believing that achieving your health and fitness goals hinges upon your ability and willingness to help others get fit is unusual.
Lt. Col. Thomas Lessner, 39th Flying Training Squadron assistant director of operations, has combined a deep-rooted need to help others with an unshakeable commitment to health and fitness and now routinely volunteers to teach body flow (a hybrid of tai chi, pilates and yoga) and body pump (total body weight lifting) and more during community health and fitness events.
In early April he was a featured instructor during the first ever City of Schertz, Texas “Movin’ on Main” health and fitness street fair, and on May 6 he will again share his talents with participants at the San Antonio YMCA-sponsored Siclovia event (http://www.ymcasatx.org/siclovia).
Devoted to family, committed to military service, and determined to help others improve their health, Lessner and his wife Kathleen make living busy lives look easy. Married for 15 years, sharing unexpected challenges, stresses, terrors and trauma, they have achieved a relationship founded on trust and communication. Resilience isn’t just a word to the Lessners - it’s a natural state of being thanks to a host of crises that could easily have crushed one or both of them, but instead resulted in unmatchable, flexible strength. (See their resilience story here: http://www.jbsa.mil/News/News/Article/1107152/resilience-binds-reservists-family-during-times-of-trial
For both of them, physical fitness is part of a health triad responsible for their dauntless outlook.
Former President John F. Kennedy said “Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.” It’s a worldview Lessner wholeheartedly shares.
“Fitness regulates my life - I get better sleep, and I have more energy and stamina; I think clearer and make better decisions,” Lessner explained. He does commit a lot of hours to fitness, but much of that time is also teaching and mentoring others.
“Physical fitness is an investment in you. Increasing your physical fitness means there is more of you to reinvest in every facet of your life. As a physical fitness instructor I am a force multiplier. When I help others develop their overall health and fitness, the whole community becomes stronger. Working out with my community makes me feel better,” he explained. “because ultimately, we all get better together.”
“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
– Muhammad Ali