Local Business Owner Finds Trick to Survival is Reinvention

Meet Muscle Mike and Soccer Sue, the area's newest superheros. The two recently set out on a mission to inspire children to make healthy diet and exercise decisions.

Muscle Mike, or Mike Alfieri of Aberdeen when he is not fighting childhood obesity with his puppet side-kick, is a personal trainer with 28 years of experience. He has had an in-home training business for the past fifteen years, but began the newest branch of his business only two months ago.

"Statistically, our children are our of shape and are really in need of someone to educate them on their level," Alfieri said.

His Fit 4 Kids program caters to preschool-aged children and is designed to teach them about fitness and being healthy, according to Alfieri. He hopes to bring Muscle Mike and Soccer Sue, his puppet side-kick, to libraries, preschools and even birthday parties.

The forty-five minute session is more of a show than anything else, according to Alfieri.

"Parents are looking for something different than the typical bowling party or magician show. I want kids going home and saying 'I really learned about vitamins' or 'I really learned about my body today,'" Alfieri said.

Even though his mission to help young children is relatively new, Alfieri has been dedicated to helping others achieve their fitness goal for about 28 years.

Alfieri began practicing with the The New York Cosmo's, a soccer team within the North American Soccer League after graduating high school. He enjoyed playing soccer and the athleticism involved in the sport, but the team was in financial trouble and unable to offer him a contract. He left after one summer and joined the military in 1984, the same year that the team folded.

Stationed out in California, Alfieri was introduced to the world of personal training and body building.

"I got involved with a personal trainer in California who really discovered me. At the time, I was a thin kid. Very athletic, but thin," Alfieri said. "From there I did a lot of fitness modeling and started my own business and did motivational speaking."

In the late eighties, in-home personal training was still fairly uncommon, according to Alfieri. He wanted to help people achieve their health goals by removing the stress of finding the time to go to the gym or dealing with the anxiety that some people feel at the gym.

"I think the in-home training brought personal training back to life," Alfieri reflected. "There wasn't the privacy, the one-on-one attention or any of the distractions at the gym."

Alfieri prides himself on creating individual programs for every single client, rather than selecting a plan from a book, and for his punctuality, dedication to clients and ability to continually make workouts interesting.

However, Alfieri credits his business' success to differentiating himself from the crowd and constant expansion despite the economic downturn that crippled so many local businesses.

"You have to learn from the downs. The military taught me that," Alfieri said.

Business is going strong, Alfieri said. There was a dip in clients seeking in-home training in 2007, but he has noticed more people are beginning to seek quality training in recent years. Rather than cut back on the services he supplies to echo a decrease in clients, Alfieri chose to expand in more than one area.

On top of his newest venture with Soccer Sue and his already established in-home training business, Alfieri has plans to market his own vitamin supplement and begin a certification program for up and coming personal trainers.

"Every year you need to reinvent yourself, or that's when you hear the sad stories, 'Oh I used to be a trainer,'" Alfieri said.