Women’s fitness center opens
By Danna Webster

A new fitness center was slated to open on the Key Peninsula by Oct 1.

Called Key Fitness, the center promotes health and feeling good for the women of the Key Pen community. It is located in Key Center, across from the library and high on a hill. From the front porch of the building, there is an excellent view of beautiful downtown Key Center. Around back is a large deck that overlooks the yard work recently done by owners, Kristen Bottiger and her husband, Pat. When they cleared the blackberries, they discovered two trees and portions of a fence that hadn’t seen the light of day for some time. More plans are developing for backyard beautification but inside the remodeling had already taken shape.

A crew of friends and family worked steadily to get Key Fitness ready for business by Oct. 1. Freshly painted spacious rooms await the action of treadmills, bicycles, punching bags and free weights.

Bottiger’s business is not a franchise, and it is important to her that she is independent.

“I like it because we don’t have to follow any corporate outline,” she says.  “I don’t like rules —I like things to be flexible.”

The fitness program includes a circuit room with resistance machines for a workout to music and cue tapes. Three certified circuit trainers will lead the program: Deanna Hunter, Rene Bullock, and Bottiger.

Her flexible philosophy is applied to the topic of diet. Bottiger believes there is no single diet that works for everyone. Key Fitness will promote healthy recipes, eating right, and talk about why dieting is difficult. There will be daily recipes, motivational quotes, group weigh-ins and group weight-loss recordings.

Good health, taking care of the heart, and toning the body are lifelong lessons taught to the Key Peninsula resident by her father, a physician, and her mother, a nurse practitioner. As a result, she has always done some type of workout, and, through the years, she has realized the physical and mental importance of fitness.

“You’re never too old to work out,” she says.

Bottiger was inspired to start a fitness center convenient for the KP community after she became “sick and tired” of going to Gig Harbor to get a workout.

“I think this is going to be a really good community place to go,” she says. A place for “meeting people you like, and meeting new friends.”

In the opening weeks, the Monday through Friday hours will be 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. The Saturday hours are from 8 to 11 a.m.

Convenient location and convenient hours means “no more excuses now,” Bottiger says.

©Copyright 2005-2008, Key Peninsula News, all rights reserved.