LOXLEY, Alabama – Exercise keeps you young. Just ask Renee Williams.

“I don’t know what 60 looks like,” she said. “I think it has a lot to do with genetics and with your level of fitness. I do believe staying fit keeps you young.”

She should know. The Robertsdale resident teaches fitness classes twice a week at the Loxley Civic Center. She is also a mother of three and grandmother of seven who just turned 61 years old.

“I hear people complain about one ailment or another and I don’t want to be like that,” she said. “I want to keep a positive attitude. After all age is just a number, right?”

For Williams, a native of Smiths Station, a small town near the Alabama border just west of Columbus, Ga., it was nurse training she received long ago that led to a love of fitness and a desire to help others become fit.

“I dropped out just a few semesters before completing my degree and I’ve been a hair dresser for years,” she said. She now works part-time at A Touch of Elegance, but has owned four shops herself in different areas.

It was a few years ago, when she owned Renee’s Beauty Shop on Pennsylvania Street in Robertsdale, where her journey in the fitness world began, she said.

“Johnny Kinard opened up a gym right beside my shop and I would go there every day after work,” she said. “It was so hard at first. I would be on my feet all day and would tell myself I was too tired, but as soon as I walked out the door, I would end up walking next door. Once I went I was glad I did.”

It wasn’t long before she began helping out at the gym.

“I became kind of like his sidekick,” she said. “I had a key so that I could open up and I began helping out with the equipment and exercise.”

She got into training because of a neighbor.

“She would see me riding my bike every day and said she needed something to get in better shape,” Williams said. “I asked her if she wanted to join me, so we began working out together.”

Within three months, her neighbor had dropped 10 dress sizes, Williams said.

“That was the first person I trained,” she said.

She began leading an exercise class because of another neighbor.

“She had knee surgery and was going through physical therapy to rehab after surgery,” she said. “As long as she was in rehab, she was fine, but it got to where she couldn’t go anymore.”

When she stopped rehab, her knee began to freeze up, and when it got to the point where she was no longer able to work, the neighbor asked Williams for help.

“I started working with her and before long she was able to go back to work,” Williams said. “Several people that she worked with saw how much she was improving and she told them that I was working with her. They wanted me to work with them as well and that’s how the class got started.”

In the beginning, Williams said, she was able to hold the classes at a location with a heated pool, but after a dispute with the manager at that location, she found herself looking for another place to hold the classes.

That’s when she heard the Loxley Civic Center was looking for someone to start an exercise group, and she has been there ever since.

Right now, Williams said, she has about 10 to 12 people working out regularly, but they have had as many as 40. Classes are held every Monday and Thursday with workouts beginning around 5:45 p.m. each night and going for about an hour.

“In the beginning I didn’t time the workouts so I would keep going until I was ready to stop,” she said. “People who have been with me for a while will tell anyone who joins that the workouts are much easier now.”

On Mondays, the workouts are mostly a Zumba-style dance workout, she said.

“We use some aspects of Zumba, but it’s not all Zumba,” she said. The workouts also utilize Pilates, which is a floor workout using mats that works mainly on inner core strength.

Then on Thursdays the workouts are a mixture of everything, with dance and Pilates, along with circuit training workouts.

“I try to mix it up a lot incorporating a little bit of everything,” she said. “I call Thursdays our fun workout. Everyone seems to enjoy it.”

Thursday workouts include boxing, work with a medicine ball and weights, along with interactive workouts designed to be done with a partner. When the groups are larger, Williams said, she even throws in a little bit of game-play such as badminton.

The workouts, she said, are geared toward all ages and all fitness levels.

“We have some people in their 20s and even two people in their 70s,” she said. “I do have some who have specific needs, so I try and adjust the workouts to work for them as well.”

While she is working toward an online degree and would like to someday become a certified trainer, right now, Williams said, she is happy to be able to help people.

“When I first started, I had a lady come in with her daughter,” she said. “She was complaining the whole time, ‘I’m the oldest one here. I don’t belong here. I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.’ Come to find out she was 59. I told her, ‘You’re not the oldest one here. I am.’ She was shocked to find out that I was older than she was.”

In the beginning, Williams said, she had to be helped down to do Pilates, and then helped back up when the workout was finished. But after a few workouts, that began to change.

“One day we were going through our routine and I really didn’t notice it,” she said. “When we finished with Pilates, she began jumping up and down and screaming (with delight), ‘I did it by myself! I was able to get down by myself and up by myself without any help.’ We may not be able to see immediate results but (being active) does help and that’s what it’s all about, right?”

Anyone wishing to join the class can call Williams at 251-947-5102 or they can call the Civic Center, 251-964-7733.