TORRINGTON – When most people look at the old, uninhabited building on the corner of 21st Street and East A, they’ll see it for what it is right now.
It used to be the local Moose Lodge, but it hasn’t been for years. It caught fire in 2015 and it’s basically been abandoned since. It’s charred, it’s dirty and the windows and doors are boarded up because asbestos was disturbed during the firefighting effort.
For some people, it might look like a lost cause.
But that’s not what Taryn Kilty sees.
She bought the building earlier this month – asbestos, charred beer bottles and all. Over the next few months, the former Moose Lodge will take on a new identity as the home of Onward Torrington, a physical therapy clinic, and CrossFit Torrington, a gym that specializes in intense, whole-body workouts.
“I tell people that that’s the building I bought and people think I’m crazy,” Kilty said. “It’s a perfect location. My other passion besides health and PT is remodeling old buildings, so when I saw this building – it was built in the 1920s, so there’s really cool brick and just some cool features. They had a fire and it’s a disaster inside. Literally there’s still beef jerky and beers still sitting on the bar and the poor moose is still charred on the wall. It is a mess.”
A team from Nebraska will go to work on the asbestos issue in a few weeks and once it’s done, Kilty and her husband, Kyle, will start working on the rest.
By April, when she’s done renovating and rejuvenating the old building, she’ll be all set up to tackle her real mission – rejuvenating the people of Torrington.
“Put the fire out”
Kilty has a doctorate in physical therapy, and specializes in working with a wide variety of clientele, including mothers who are looking to resume their fitness journey after giving birth, people who suffer from lower back pain and fitness athletes, to name a few. Her mission is to use treatment and exercise for long-term fixes and lifelong wellness.
“I want to help that postpartum mom return to fitness, because that’s just a lost world,” she said. “People who have like lower back pain – that would be like my ideal client, or somebody that’s just wanting to get stronger and just more fit.”
Kilty maintains a strong online presence through her social media pages and her website, tarynkilty.com. She already works with postpartum mothers online, and wrote a 56-page e-book for mothers to help them return to their normal activities.
With Onward Torrington, Kilty is looking forward to seeing more patients in person.
“I really love just being with people and when you’re doing the online thing, there’s a lot of back-and-forth but you never actually get to be in the same room with people,” she said. “I still wanted to be able to treat my patients, women’s health stuff but also I have a background in corporate wellness, managing the fitness athlete, and so I’m kind of bringing that aspect into it.”
According to Kilty, the Onward philosophy is “to put the fire out” through manual therapy. Clients undergo a subjective and thorough assessment to identify exactly what their issues are, and the goal is always to find that long-term fix to address those issues, which can include chronic pain.
“A lot of times patients are sent on their merry way after their pain has improved,” she said. “Our goal is to provide patients with the tools they need to build their functional capacity and basically put myself out of a job.”
“Sweat and suffer together”
The CrossFit Torrington gym will be something Goshen County hasn’t seen before – and Kilty said she was nervous about being the one to introduce it.
“I really was nervous, honestly, with this whole CrossFit thing because I just didn’t know what the community would think of this, but I’ve had tons of people reach out to me,” she said.
“There was some hesitation on my end because I want the other fitness places in town to do well. I’m not doing this for competition, I honestly just want to bring another aspect of health in and so I think there’s enough to go around.
“There’s been some really cool people come out of the woodwork which makes me feel good because I thought it might just be me forcing my husband to come, too.”
CrossFit is a high-intensity workout program that utilizes variable movements like basic gymnastics, Olympic weightlifting and traditional calisthenics. It started gaining traction in the 2000s, and has turned into a major lifestyle movement and competitive sport. It’s biggest competition, the CrossFit Games, is shown annually on ESPN and Netflix has produced several documentaries about the program, the sport and the games.
“CrossFit is a lifestyle, characterized by safe, effective exercise with emphasis on nutrition,” Kilty said. “The magic is in the movements. Workouts are different every day and modified to achieve your goals.”
Kilty said she has been doing the workouts by herself for a while, and decided it would go hand-in-hand with what she wants to accomplish in Torrington.
“I was doing CrossFit just by myself,” she said. “I thought, ‘You know, I love the community aspect of it, so why not just start at a CrossFit gym with the Onward Physical Therapy, and we’ll just put it all in the same building.’ It will really just support people along their fitness journey.
“I love doing CrossFit. There’s a lot of misconceptions out there what CrossFit is. I think a lot of times people think of it like these meatheads that are just grunting and throwing a lot of weight around, but CrossFit to me is more of a community that brings people together to sweat and suffer together, basically.”
And it’s safer than people think, Kilty said. For years, CrossFit has been the subject of rumors that the program causes injuries – but that’s not the case.
“It’s intense. Don’t get me wrong – it is intense and I feel like there’s a mental part of it, too,” she said. “When you are able to lift your personal record or you accomplish something and you do it as a group and everyone’s cheering you on, there’s something to that for people. The misconception to this is that CrossFit has higher injury rates, but actually running has higher injury rates than CrossFit. I think it’s up to us to smash those misconceptions with CrossFit.”
While the most famous CrossFitters in the world, names like Brooke Wells and Rich Froning, are physical specimens, Kilty said they compete at an elite level, tantamount to the NFL. CrossFit can fit anyone at any level.
“The biggest thing is volume and intensity,” she said. “I know because of the volume part, people get a little bit nervous, but it’s all scalable. Let’s say you can’t do a pull-up. It doesn’t matter. There’s several different scales that we can do and that’s the biggest thing. It is all scalable. If you can’t do a kipping pull-up – I cannot do I kipping pull-up yet – you can scale that.”
Onward Physical Therapy and CrossFit Torrington will be separate entities, but the two will work hand in hand. Kilty said she would also like to incorporate some nutrition advice, making her future businesses a one-stop location for whole body care.
“I’d like to work with people on their nutrition, because it all kind of goes hand-in-hand,” she said. “It’s really like your boutique gym, if you will. You are essentially getting personal trainer-type services in a group setting, but I also think that’s where the good thing about my background is, that I can look at somebody, and if they’re having like shoulder pain with overhead squats, we can work that out and see why are you having a shoulder pain – not just ‘let’s just take a break for a little while.’
“We can really treat it and give somebody specific mobility drills, if that’s the issue, and help them overcome their pain. That’s another nice marriage between the two.”
“The ideas don’t stop”
Kilty’s performance center should be up and running in April. She’s already begun to see Onward clients in a temporary space at 21st and Main, and CrossFit Torrington will hold its first classes when the building is ready.
Kilty said she’s already trying to figure out what classes to offer, the best time to offer classes, open gym times and how the gym can be involved in the community. She’s even considering a kiosk with nutritious snacks.
Nothing is certain yet, but she’s looking at special classes for new mothers, senior citizens and possibly even a class for people who are starting at square one, without being intimidated by more experienced CrossFitters.
“The ideas do not stop,” she said.
But her goal will remain the same. The purpose of both Onward Torrington and CrossFit Torrington is to help people get healthy, remain healthy and have a higher quality of life.
“I want to help people and assist them on their health journey,” she said.
