Fitness family comes out on top

Tim Dorsey Fitness was named the Funcoast.com Readers' Choice Awards Best Fitness Center, but that's not news to its hundreds of enthusiastic members."I thought it was pretty awesome," said fitness guru and owner Tim Dorsey. "It says a lot about our fitness family at the gym. I say a lot of my daily votes came from our core people, so that says a lot about how tight we are as a group. That's pretty cool."What's amazing is Tim Dorsey Fitness moved earlier this year from a Best Western Hotel basement to its new 2,300-square foot facility in the Sandusky Plaza. While Dorsey said he looks back fondly at his previous location, the new facility does provide more visibility.Still, he's pretty surprised his venue won the Funcoast.com Readers' Choice Awards."Because Planet Fitness' customer base is so huge, I thought they were probably sitting in the best spot," Dorsey said. "I was kind of expecting them to take it because of that, but at the same time, I guess our family is pretty tight."So it wasn't a huge surprise to see it happen. I was excited to have it happen, for sure."The new Tim Dorsey Fitness location boasts mostly open floor space with members training using slam balls, kettlebells, heavy ropes and free weights. Dorsey said there's only one large piece of equipment. The leg press is so popular it has its own name – Iron Mike."We offer small group and large group training, as well as individual training," Dorsey said. "We just ramped up all of our time in the last week and a half. We've been adding classes and growing pretty steadily. We're averaging probably 20 people per class, and we have about 30 classes a week, so we've been steadily climbing since the first of the year. It's been a pretty good move."Fittingly, moving is something Dorsey is known for. His motto is "Just keep moving," and it's something he preaches to all those who use the fitness center."It doesn't matter if it's hard, if you feel like you're going to fail or there's something you can't do, we always make a modification," Dorsey said. "We want to make sure no matter what, we just keep moving. We don't let the movement or your workout beat you. We don't let your mind beat you. No matter what, you just keep moving."In terms of not getting beat, Dorsey speaks from experience. He's a cancer survivor. In fact, in May he'll be a year cancer free. The experience was something he shared with is Tim Dorsey Fitness family. It turned out his members proved to be a priceless motivation."A lot of people rallied around me when I found out I had cancer," Dorsey said. "When I was training before, I felt like I was just working out a lot of people. I didn't realize I was making so many friends. And I feel like when I found out I was sick, so many people rallied around me, around us, rallied around our business."Now, we just kept growing as a family." For more information, visit https://wwwfacebook.com/TimDorseyFitness/Tim Dorsey, center, holds his Reader's Choice Award for Best Gym/Fitness Center as he and his family and friends stand for a photo at Wednesday evening's event at Kalahari Resorts.