Fitness
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I JANUARY 2018 39
BY HAYLEY BRIDGEWATER
For residents of western
Queens, it is exciting (and
sometimes surprising)
to watch the remarkable
growth and development
in the local landscape, and this is
especially true of the Dutch Kills
area. Once solely the site of industrial
warehouses and manufacturing sites,
recent years have breathed new life
into the neighborhood. Residences,
small business, entertainment desti-nations
and the like have created a
community that is ready for incoming
fitness facilities.
Enter Dom Fortino. No stranger
to western Queens, Fortino’s family
has run small businesses in the area
since the 1950s. He himself has been
a resident and contributing member
of the fitness community since 2005.
He originally created Fortified Ho-listic
LLC to provide nutritional coach-ing
and fitness encouragement to
the local community. An experienced
personal trainer who also has taught
boot camp, cardio kickboxing, spin
class and workouts using strong-man
apparatus, Fortino discovered
CrossFit in 2009.
“Like many, I started doing CrossFit
on my own and soon joined a local
community in Astoria to train in a class
setting,” he said. “The results I was
seeing and the methodology behind
the program I found to be astounding.
Shortly thereafter, my brother and a
friend of ours joined together and
repurposed Fortified Holistic LLC to
form our own CrossFit gym, which
was then known as CrossFit Bell.”
That business was originally locat-ed
in Bayside, Queens, but by 2013,
the need to expand the facility led
Fortino to relocate the gym to the
Dutch Kills area.
“To our surprise and humility, the
majority of our members followed us
from Bayside to Dutch Kills,” Fortino
said.
On Labor Day weekend in 2017,
Fortified Holistic moved to its current
location at 37-40 31st St.
“The current building has been oc-cupied
by someone in my family since
the early 1950s and holds a special
place in my heart,” Fortino said. “My
family has run many small businesses
out of this corner building, serving the
Dutch Kills community, and it was
finally our turn.”
Fortino wanted to make an impact
in the area and thought that a fitness
facility was the perfect addition to a
budding residential area.
“We’ve been told we are a welcomed
change from the grittier industrial busi-nesses
and people are excited to have
this service so close to home, enjoying
the amenities of parking and proximity
to the major subway stations only two
stops from Manhattan.”
Dutch Kills Fitness currently of-fers
CrossFit Classes, City Strong(wo)
man Classes and Barbell Technique
Classes. Their CrossFit program is a
mixture of weight training, gymnastics
and mono-structural movement, which
are varied, functional movements per-formed
at high intensity.
In addition to CrossFit, the gym runs
a City Strongman program, a format
unique to the western Queens commu-nity
and is growing in popularity. The
City Strongman program was designed
to bring together those with CrossFit
experience across NYC and Long
Island in a new forum. The program
provides participants instruction on
strongman apparatus such as tires,
the atlas stone, kegs, farmer carry
handles, yolks, logs, etc. and puts them
to the CrossFit stimulus. Regardless of
their fitness level, all CrossFit clients
complete the same workout each day,
which coaches tailor to each individual.
“We are still growing into the
space, but are delighted with what
the facility and location have to of-fer
and the people we are meeting
from the community in the process,”
Fortino said.
The results I was seeing and the methodology behind
the program I found to be astounding.
DOM FORTINO
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