Trainer makes water a key part of exercise routines

* Name: Frances Archer

* Job title: Director of aquatics and personal trainer

* Location: Sports Barn downtown

* First job: Worked in a general store in Humarock, a peninsula off Cape Cod, Mass.

* Favorite part of job: Teaching either water exercises or swimming. “I love them both, and I love both the adults and the children,” said Ms. Archer. “My most favorite part is when someone swims for the first time and the way they look. It’s like when a baby first walks.”

* Worst part of job: While Ms. Archer said there’s “nothing bad” about her job, she does recognize some challenges. “The biggest challenge is when people bring children who aren’t interested in learning how to swim,” she said, rather than waiting until the child is ready to learn.

* Special rewards: Seeing a child, or even an older person who’s been afraid of water, learn to swim. In water aerobics, when someone realizes he can do things he hasn’t done before. There are older people, and they’ve lost some ability to do things — range of motion, perhaps — and they get it back.

* Best advice: When people work out in the water, they don’t feel the pain after or during the workout that they would if they did it on land. People with a knee or hip replacement can get a lot more range of motion by working out in the water than if they did it on land.

* Making a career of it: Get a national certification in group fitness training. There are special certifications for aquatic training, not necessarily training, but teaching people how to give full body workouts in the water. It takes awhile. You have to learn a lot of physiology and dealing with people, especially if you get a group training certification.