America's North Shore Journal

Staff Sgt. Colleen Wilcox, radio chief, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Detach­ment, Com­bat Logis­tics Bat­tal­ion 13, 13^th Marine Expe­di­tionary Unit and Water­ford, Mich. native, leads an aer­o­bics class on the flight deck of USS Com­stock, June 24. Wilcox desires to become a cer­ti­fied instruc­tor through Aer­o­bics Fit­ness Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­ica so she can offi­cially teach both Marines and Sailors. Photo by Cpl. Robert C. Medina

The occa­sional sound of music blares from the flight deck of USS Com­stock. A group of Marines step awk­wardly in uni­son and seem to be enjoy­ing them­selves, mak­ing the most of their workout.

The leader of this up-beat aer­o­bics class, Staff Sgt. Colleen Wilcox, radio chief, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Detach­ment, Com­bat Logis­tics Bat­tal­ion 13.

Wilcox, from Water­ford, Mich., said she began par­tic­i­pat­ing in aer­o­bics when she joined the Marine Corps. Even­tu­ally, she desires to become a cer­ti­fied instruc­tor through Aer­o­bics Fit­ness Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­ica, so she can offi­cially teach both Marines and Sailors.

"Before we came on deploy­ment I taught on base with just my Marines at the gym," said Wilcox.
"My class is an hour long," she said. "I like to start out with some warm-ups, then some resis­tance work­outs. We do upper body one day and lower body the next."

Wilcox says it's not always easy to find a spot on ship to have class. With all the dif­fer­ent mov­ing parts aboard the Com­stock, space can be limited.

In addi­tion to space con­straints, it can also be a chal­lenge to get diverse participants.

"As much as the male Marines might think they don't like it and feel it's more for women, I think it is great for every­one because it works their bod­ies out in dif­fer­ent ways than they would nor­mally do it," said Wilcox.

Staff Sgt. Colleen Wilcox, radio chief, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Detach­ment, Com­bat Logis­tics Bat­tal­ion 13, 13^th Marine Expe­di­tionary Unit and Water­ford, Mich. native, leads an aer­o­bics class on the flight deck of USS Com­stock, June 24. Photo by Cpl. Robert C. Medina

Cor­po­ral Sarah L. Grif­fin, also with Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Detach­ment, CLB-13, which is part of the 13^th Marine Expe­di­tionary Unit, has been attend­ing classes through­out the deployment.

"I always vol­un­teer to do [the class]," said Grif­fin, a native of San Clemente, Calif. "The big­ger the class the more fun it is."

When Wilcox teaches an aer­o­bics class, she always takes a cou­ple of Marines from her shop to change it up.

Grif­fin says her favorite part of the class is watch­ing every­one try really hard to get the moves down.

"You get to see how unco­or­di­nated peo­ple are some­times," said Griffin.

She con­tin­ued by say­ing, "I like to change up my work­outs, espe­cially here on ship. I think every­one should try it at least once, it's a lot of fun."

DVIDS
Story by Cpl. Robert C. Medina