Personal trainer Edith "E" Leclerc, front, holds a water aerobics class Tuesday at the Pelican Bay Club House in Daytona Beach. (N-J | Steven Notaras)

When body building and figure competitor Edith "E" Leclerc went to her first water aerobics class a few years ago, she wasn't expecting a challenging workout led by an 84-year-old instructor.

Leclerc, 49, however, was surprised to find that water aerobics class at Pelican Bay sent her heart rate racing as she plunged through the water's resistance. After a few months of going to the class, she lost two inches from her waistline.

Eventually, Leclerc volunteered to teach the class for free. But when the economy put a halt on her income from her real estate properties in 2007, Leclerc needed a job.

"I didn't want to hate waking up every morning," Leclerc said. "So I wrote down my passions and thought about how I could make a living doing what I love."

Leclerc's passion for health led her to become a certified personal trainer in 2007. She now teaches four water aerobics classes a week at Pelican Bay. She also started Water Boot Camp -- an intense cardio water workout that combines swimming, weights and relay races. The average age of participants for boot camp is 30 to 40 years old, Leclerc said. This month, she will begin teaching boot camp classes at MG on the Halifax in Holly Hill, which will be open to the public.

"We do 30 to 50 reps of each exercise super fast," she said. "It exhausts the muscles and is a lot of cardio."

When she was 25, Leclerc moved to the area from Canada's province of Quebec. Unlike most young women, Leclerc had trouble gaining weight and began working out with a friend who was training for a body building competition. She soon decided to enter one herself. She competed in two body building competitions before she switched to figure competitions. In 2008, the mother of two placed third in the Debbie Kruck Classic figure competition in Daytona Beach.

"It requires a lot of self-discipline and I find that I go through some of the same struggles as my clients when it comes to nutrition," she said. "But as a personal trainer, I need to be an example for others."

Three days a week Leclerc, who now resides in Ormond, leads a group of women who reside in Pelican Bay through an hour-long senior water aerobics class that combines weights and strength and cardio exercises. She's been leading the same core group of women -- many of them in their 70s and 80s -- for the past six years.

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Ormond Beach woman's passion for fitness leads to new career as personal trainer