SIXMILEBRIDGE’S newest business owners are hopeful of creating a wellness community through the opening of a new gym.
First cousins Chloe and Seadna Morey are to open Morey Movement in Sixmilebridge this coming Monday (November 22nd) bringing a state of the art facility that the O’Garneyside has never seen.
Individual training areas are a central part of the gym located in The Mill Yard, seconds away from the heart of Sixmilebridge. The duo visited gyms all over the country to get a sense of what they wanted to bring to the area while they completed a diploma in personal training from Setanta College.
Seadna explained of the facilities on offer, “We’ve fourteen squat racks altogether, we’ll have twelve in the classes so each person will have their own squat rack, their own set of dumbbells ranging from 4kg to 22.5kg and we have heavier weights for people wanting to lift stronger, they have their own barbell and set of weights going up to 150kg, they have their own cardio equipment too, we’ve kettlebells, slam balls, wall balls and wall ball targets, we’ve equipment for every aspect of fitness you can think of”. The equipment itself was an investment of €100k.
Teaching will be a fundamental pillar of their coaching style, the 2013 All-Ireland winning Clare hurler stressed. “When people come in they will be able to see why they have membership of Morey Movement, it is not just a mat on the floor with one kettlebell and doing circuits, we want to zone in on teaching people, they won’t just come in do something and go away, if they’ve had a membership for a year they will learn how to squat and know exactly what to do”.
Starting off there will be a limited timetable with no more than twelve people in the classes to keep high coaching standards while an open use area will be accessible to the public. Morning and evening classes will be the main focus for the early stages of the new enterprise. The cousins will be the sole employees starting off and will attempt to balance running the gym with their roles as a secondary school teacher (Chloe) and dangerous goods safety advisor (Seadna).
Morey Movement will be an inclusive place for everybody, Chloe insisted. ”It is quite daunting for people going into new fitness spaces, it is something simple like knowing where the changing rooms are or where you go when you walk in. Seadna and I have planned it to an absolute tee, the open day was about showing people how it works and showing that this isn’t done anywhere else with the pod system with your own squat rack, weights and cardio equipment, it is really individual but it is in a small team environment which Seadna and I have thrived off, we’re hoping to make it as comfortable and as safe for people to come. You won’t see us screaming or roaring, you won’t see pictures of people lifting real heavy weights or quotes littered on the walls, it is a very inclusive space, we’re trying to get away from this is a space for elite athletes, it is for everybody”.
Small group personal training has never been in the area, Seadna flagged. “We want to facilitate all types of fitness, we don’t want this to be an athletic gym where people look at it as only for elite players come, we want to hit all aspects of the public whether they haven’t stepped foot in a gym before, we hope to be able to bring them through the beginning of their fitness journey. It is about getting people moving. We had the same aspects with the Morey Sports Camps which we ran with the kids, we wanted to come away from just a hurling and camogie camp, we wanted the kids to come down, get moving and get exercising, we want to do the same for adults here, whatever they want to do we hope to be able to facilitate it through different types of classes. We want to create a good fitness community in The Bridge”.
Three different types of training session can be booked into at Morey Movement – the all-zone class works on every facet of fitness such as mobility, strength and cardio, the amber zone class is cardio based with heart rate monitors used while the red zone class is endurance based.
Having brought some of her Clare camogie teammates to visit the facility, Chloe quipped that it resembled “an adults playground, they were getting things, lifting weights, jumping over things, it is very like the sports camp but for adults. When we come down I’d be smiling looking at it, our family would be using the place, you will want for nothing here, there is nowhere like it around, we’re really look with the position we’re in. Our name is on the wall, we don’t do anything half measured and we give everything one hundred percent”.
Support has always flowed for the people of The Bridge for their camogie and hurling teams, Chloe is hopeful this venture will be no different. “People around here are used to doing a bums, tums or whatever class, thirty in the class with a dumbbell, kettlebell and that’s it. With women sometimes they say I don’t want to go to the gym because I’ll get big and bulky but that isn’t it all, we’d love people to come up here and get really strong, we want to really educate people and give them the autonomy in a few months that they know what they’re doing. For men, I find sometimes they don’t go to classes because they think they’re for women but here we’re offering every aspect of fitness so there is something for everyone here, we’ve good guiding principles, we’re trying to do something different and we’ll see if the people of Sixmilerbridge back us but they always do to be fair”.
Of his goals for Morey Movement, Seadna outlined, “I’m big into building a community of health and wellbeing with people looking after their bodies, last year was evidence of that with COVID and how precious our health is. A lot of people looked at aspects of exercise, it is not just a gym, I want to build a whole wellbeing part of The Bridge and surrounding areas through Morey Movement, hopefully we can do different community based events to help all ages. I want to build it as a community centre of health and wellbeing”.
“It is a very sporting village, we’re very lucky we’ve very good soccer and GAA teams, we’ve every sort of club and society for kids which is class but from the age of 28 up there is nothing for people only to walk around, we thought it would be very cool to offer something to the adult population of The Bridge. It is one of the fastest growing towns in Munster, you would almost have felt a tint of sadness that people were having to go to Shannon or Limerick if they wanted to get fit, to have the offering here is really important for Sixmilebridge, we’re a really close-knit community, hopefully this will add to it,” Chloe added.
A love of the gym for Chloe was fostered from watching her father Mike, both he and Seadna’s father Pat were working on applying finishing touches to the gym during the countdown to the opening day while the business expertise of Shannon Precision owner Don Murphy is greatly appreciated by the Moreys. “We’ve had amazing support from the family, hopefully we’ll get that from the community when we open up,” Seadna reflected.
