Get After It.
Sometimes when a person is seeking a change in life, all it takes is a subtle nudge to take the leap.
For Johnyee Storey, that subtle nudge came day after day after day on her drive home from work, which took her right by the MAC Fitness facility off Walnut Street.
“I had fallen in love with fitness, and I drove by this building 1,000 times when driving home every day,” she said. “I knew the original owner had sold it, and I was always curious what was happening with it.”
Nudge. Nudge. Nudge. Leap.
“I called to see if I could buy the business,” she said. “That was December 2017. On the first of January 2018, we signed the papers.”
“Working out keeps you young.”
The 24-hour fitness facility has been a staple in Pittsburg for many years, and Storey said she wanted to keep the MAC name and brand while she worked to establish her own touch on the business. Soon, however, the popular workout facility will be renamed ALPHA Fitness.
“I’ve owned it for this long,” Storey said. “I felt it was time to let the old go and bring in something new.”
Storey said her own journey through fitness and nutrition found her wanting to own a fitness facility in Pittsburg. She wants to share her belief in the power of exercise with the community.
“Working out keeps you young,” she said. “Keeping your body in motion is so important. We offer a nice environment that is welcoming to everyone. It’s not necessarily a competitive environment, but it can be nice to have someone there to look up to, to keep you moving and keep you in the gym.”
Storey said many of the gym members are students at Pittsburg State University.
“Pittsburg is such a good college town,” she said. “It’s such a cool town to live in. When I started here, we maybe had 20 members. Then we had a couple athletes at Pitt State come in, and we started working with them. That really helped grow our business.
“The college brings in so much.”
“Pittsburg is such a good college town.”
As a mother of four, Storey said she knows it can seem hard for many people to find the time to work out on a regular basis. But, she said, the key is to just get started.
“Just come in and do a little bit,” she said. “A lot of people have trouble just getting started. Once they do, though, they feel better and stick with it. Don’t worry about comparing yourself to others or worry that people are watching you. If you look around, you’ll see that nobody is watching. They’re all focused on themselves, which is where that focus should be.”
MAC Fitness, soon to be ALPHA Fitness, is located at 306 W. 11th Street.
