Mitchell Pitney is owner of Double Down CrossFit on Nob Hill Avenue in Yakima.
He took over the gym in 2018, after returning to the Yakima Valley. He joined the gym first as a member, and became head coach a year prior to becoming owner.
Pitney grew up in Sunnyside and moved to the West Valley in high school. As a young man, he spent some time in Los Angeles, hoping to pursue a music career, before realizing that city life just wasn’t right for him.
Eventually, he found work in the oil fields in North Dakota, where he spent five years of his life working long hours, weeks and months at a time.
“I was real young, I was real immature,” he said of his time there. “I learned a lot.”
He would drive, fly and take the train back to Washington state to spend time with the woman who would become his wife, an ER nurse. They now have three kids.
For Pitney, joining CrossFit isn’t just about working on fitness goals. It’s about sharing and celebrating them as a community.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,” Pitney recited.
He said he hopes to reach people who are busy parents and professionals or hope to gain strength following injury or illness. He wants the hour they spend at his gym to be the best hour of their day. That approach has had an impact.
“He inspires others daily — celebrating their progress, lifting their spirits, and making hard days feel lighter,” Josh Munson, a gym member, said in his nomination of Pitney. “Mitchell is a true catalyst for positive change in our community. My life has been changed for the better because of Mitchell.”
For the past four years, Pitney has also been the strength and conditioning coach for the Selah High School volleyball team, which made it to state last year. Last year, he was a speaker at the Central Washington Athletic Conference Leadership Summit.
“I’m super proud of those girls,” Pitney said.
Questen Inghram is a Murrow News Fellow at the Yakima Herald-Republic whose beat focuses on government in Central Washington communities. Email qinghram@yakimaherald.com or call 509-577-7674.
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