Tina Morelli grips a pole and is quickly upside down as she climbs the 11-foot apparatus.

The 44-year-old overturns her body, making it perpendicular to the pole and parallel to the floor, with upper arm strength that would make even the most muscular of body builders envious.

Morelli, a former Deja Vu exotic dancer, is in her natural element — the studio of her business, Pole Fitness Northwest.

Going strong eight years in Federal Way, Morelli moved her business a few blocks south on Pacific Highway. Her new studio is now located at 30315 Pacific Highway S., Suite B in Federal Way and offers 15 poles instead of 12. Each golden pole is 11 feet tall instead of the restricting eight feet her old studio once had.

“Location is key for business, right?” Morelli said. “Pacific Highway is a busy street. It’s halfway to Seattle, halfway to Tacoma, kind of right in the middle.”

Although Morelli commutes from Maple Valley, she said she’s had students travel from as far as Gig Harbor and Bellingham — a vast difference from when she began Pole Fitness.

Interest in getting fit with pole dancing is at an all time high “now more than ever,” Morelli said.

“When I first started, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t make any money for, like, three years,” she said. “It was so taboo. People were like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s teaching people how to strip.’”

She even had a self-proclaimed born-again Christian protest her business in the parking lot for a week when her business was new.

“She had this bullhorn and all this stuff taped to her car saying I was teaching little kids how to be strippers,” Morelli recalled.

But that’s exactly what Pole Fitness doesn’t do.

“It’s funny because people see it visually and they go, ‘that looks so easy, I could do that,’” she said. “But when they leave, they always say, ‘I have a total new respect for strippers. I thought their job was easy.’”

With the motto, “You are the weight,” a typical fitness session includes 15 minutes of sit-ups and push-ups on an exercise ball, an hour on the pole and lunges at the end. Morelli said the hour on the pole is a full body work out and newcomers are often sent home with Epsom salt.

The workout is open to just about every woman age 18 and older and can be modified for an individual based on weight, age or whether that person has a body injury.

As one of the first pole dancing fitness studios to open in Washington, Morelli wondered if the workouts would actually provide results.

“I had a student who was almost 400 pounds, she was 372 and she liked coming but her husband had lost his job and she couldn’t afford to come,” she said.

Morelli made her a deal: If she attended Pole Fitness three times a week and let Morelli measure her weight loss, the student could attend for free.

The woman lost almost 60 pounds in six months but had to quit after she got pregnant.

Helper and student Lisa Blessing has also reclaimed her health by losing about 35 pounds. Blessing suffered from an aneurysm in 2008 and had to relearn how to walk and talk. After starting in February 2012, she described the workouts at Pole Fitness as “total therapy.”

Morelli said Pole Fitness is different from other studios because she doesn’t have weight restrictions and allows students to progress through the various levels once she sees they’ve accomplished each trick.

“People can come one time a month, one time a year, whenever they want, the classes never expire,” she said. “You don’t have to get through five weeks of something and then move to the next thing, I feel like if you’ve got five tricks we do in that first class down, we’ll take you to the next level. Everybody’s different.”

Although some may be more experienced than others, she said it takes about six months of going twice a week to progress to the highest level. The levels include beginner, intermediate and advanced. She also offers private instruction and extra practice called “play time.”

Packages are between $125 to $180 for four lessons, however, new students can pay $215 for unlimited monthly lessons at all levels. New student pricing also includes discounts for various packages.

Morelli was able to start her own business after she won a $20,000 prize and did a nationwide tour for the Pole Olympics. Each club she went to paid about $3,000 a night. Every two days she would move to another club, which added up to about 60 clubs that year.

“They said we’ll pay for you to go around the country as a feature performer so I did that for an entire year,” she said. “They paid for my nanny and my daughter to go.”

With nowhere to spend the money, she saved. When she was done for the year, she came back and bought two houses and a studio.

Prior to working at Deja Vu, she worked at Little Darling’s downtown. Often, her coworkers asked her to teach them tricks and, soon, patrons did too.

Morelli said pole dancing is on its way to becoming an Olympic sport but in order for the Olympic Academy to recognize it as a sport, it has to be considered one for 12 years. So far, it’s only been five years.

“Maybe in 2020,” Morelli said, noting performers on America’s Got Talent often perpetuate the negative stigma. “People don’t want this to be stripping but then they go on that show and dress like a stripper.”

With one instructor out of town for the military and another in training, Morelli keeps busy during the week with classes and on the weekend with private parties.

“Bachelorette, birthday, we have a party almost every weekend,” Morelli said. “We’re just a supportive environment. I want everybody to know it’s fun, don’t be scared.”

And even though Pole Fitness is all about fitness, Morelli believes her workouts bring everyone out of their shell after a couple of classes.

“I think there’s a little stripper in every woman,” she said, “You just got to bring it out of her.”

For more information, visit www.polefitnessnorthwest.com.

Tina Morelli, owner of Pole Fitness Northwest. Raechel Dawson, the Mirror