Testimonials
Testimonials:
I’ve done a bunch of different workout programs through the years and I’ve been a member of multiple gyms. I even owned a home gym and one of those fancy cardio machines. But, none of them helped get me stay in shape or did they keep me motivated.
It was until joining the gym at work and meeting Andrew that I got a workout program that was right for me. I told him my goals and we got there week by week. I didn’t hurt my back or tweak any muscles and he switched it up each month so I wouldn’t get bored with my workouts. I joined the gym weighing in at about 236 lbs. Now six months later I weight 185 lbs and I didn’t spend a dollar on any expensive supplements or energy bars etc.
I’ve seen his following grow as time passed as they saw the results that we were getting from his program. Not only did I learn more about exercise and weight training but I value more what I eat and put into my body. He teaches not only a workout program but a way of living better and staying healthy.
Thanks Andrew,
Sincerely,
Shawn Smigiel
Southwick, MA
Age 31
I work with a group of individuals who are serious about weight lifting. They starting training with Andy and boosted how the alternative workouts he suggests have helped them obtain better results than ever. I have never been a heavy lifter, I mostly run and fit in a cardio class now and then. When they encouraged me to join in on Andy’s workout program my fear was bulking up and not getting in enough cardio. I was wrong on both accounts.
I have built up from doing “girl” push ups to being able to do full push ups. I am keeping up with some of the men on the body weight and endurance workouts. And as an added benefit I have gained speed in my running!!
I have recently started to play with my diet and have seen immediate results when combining it with the workouts Andy suggests.
Andy is an amazing motivator, and provides encouragement every step of the way. He has a positive outlook on life and does not force a strict regimen; rather he provides different options that one can adopt based on their training goals and lifestyle.
Thank you for all the support, and introducing me to a safe and efficient way to stay healthy and fit!!
Brandy Alexander
Wilbraham, MA
Age 32
I’ve trained with weights on and off over the last several years, usually stopping due to injury or just plain boredom. As an aging athlete, I was looking for a way to be able to compete with an ever younger opponent while staying off the DL – old school bench presses, curls, and Nautilus machines were wreaking havoc on my joints. I approached Andy with my goals and concerns and he created a customized workout for me to work on core strength, endurance, and technique. Once I had the basic skills and endurance to handle a more hard-core training routine, Andy introduced me to CrossFit. Since following the CrossFit WOD, with Andy’s careful guidance and modifications to suit my specific needs, I have rapidly increased speed, endurance, and strength. Andy has taken a banged-up weekend warrior and turned back the clock by more than a decade. I’m now just about as fast and strong as I was at 25, and I’m only getting better. Thanks to Andy, not only will I be more competitive on the field – I’ll look and feel better off it.
Trey Orr
Longmeadow, MA
Age 38
So there I am in the gym, again curling the 35 pound dumbbells, again for between 8 and 12 repetitions. Today is bicep, triceps and deltoid day. Okay, that’s 12 reps, note to self: increase weight to 40 pounds for next “arm day”. I look over, there is a personal training session going on. One of the staff from the gym is working with a thirty-something mother of three. He is looking out the window at the windy day while he encourages her to do 5 more crunches in a distant monotone. I Jump on the Stairmaster for 25 minutes. Oh great Oprah’s on. She’s talking to a woman about a challenging life thing, again. 25 minutes is up and I am done with my arm day and Stairmaster workout. I head upstairs to the basketball court and do the fun part of my regime, I kick and punch and practice forms for 45 minutes. I walk by the front desk on my way out after a shower, say good-bye to the pretty blonde; what’s her name again? She is the latest new front desk person.
These were my workouts for the last 28 years. Are you bored reading about it? Imagine how bored I was doing it. I have been doing Tang Soo Do; a Korean martial art, since I was 12 years old. It was the best part of my exercise regiment. The weights and cardio were all about supporting my training. I never made much in the way of gains with the lifting or the CV stuff. I worked out on my bench with 135 pounds so I could make sure to do 3 sets of between 8 and 12 reps. I generally worked out with between 35 and 45 pounds on my curls and 25 to 35 on my triceps. I used to spend 30 minutes on the treadmill or the Stairmaster but in the last few years the crushing boredom usually got me off the machine after 20 minutes or so. Hey, I was going to get in a cardio workout with my Tang Soo Do right, so why spend all that time on a treadmill? When I asked for ways to bring up the level of my workouts, the answer from the generic staff at the different gyms were always the same. Be careful and don’t do too much. And for an extra twenty dollars a month you can take as many aerobic and step classes as you like. Not much help.
Then I meet Andy Romeo. He is a staff person at a gym I belonged to. In all fairness, it was a great gym too. He says hi and asks if I would like him to develop a workout for me. My first thought was how much? And my second thought was it won’t be worth it. I had seen too many “new workouts” in my time and didn’t want to pay big bucks to be taught The Stripper Dance workout. But Andy had an enthusiasm that made me rethink my decision. He wasn’t pushy at all, but he was sincere. He was excited. I was tentative but he sounded like he had something to offer. Something different, so I said sure.
What he came back to me with was a workout that pushed me in ways I had never been pushed.
“It’s a functional strength workout,” he said.
I had never heard of it but he was stoked about it and I was feeling the challenge it offered. He made sure I knew how to do each exercise. He also made sure that there wasn’t anything generic about the routines. He tailored it for me and my level and every day was different. Over the next few months I saw him working with more and more people and we all started talking to each other. We were all followers of the Andy Romeo program and knew we were part of something unique. We were finding things in ourselves that we never knew we had and Andy was the conductor of our particular exercise orchestra. The next thing I know, I’m doing bench press once a month…maybe, and I am pushing up 195 pounds for three sets of thirty. I am doing squats, a completely new exercise because I had never had anyone show me a safe and healthy way to do this exercise. I was doing deadlifts with 350 pounds (another completely new exercise only two months before this personal record). I was doing box jumps and burpees and pull ups by the bushel. I brought my mile run from a ten minute mile to just about a seven minute mile. I am 45 years old and am lifting more and doing more than I was when I was 25. Andy is the guy that got me here. I can honestly say that without him I would still be repeating the same low level workout and making zero gains. In fact I’m sure I would be slipping backwards. Andy pushed me and everyone else and he made sure we were equipped with exacting instruction for any new exercises: overhead squats, thrusters, sumo high-pulls, etc.
One last thing and this means a lot; 6 1/2 years ago I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I kid you not. I thought I’d be in a wheel chair by now, not doing clean and jerks with 165 pounds. And sure, I am on a fantastic medication but still my doctor is amazed by what I am able to do and he and I believe that the work I am doing with Andy is a big part of the success of my treatment.
When I told Andy about the disease, he said, “Okay. This is a plate push. All you got to do is push this 45 pound plate along the rubberized floor without letting your knees touch the ground. Twenty steps is all.” There was none of the “take it easy” stuff that other staff members might have offered. Andy was all about acknowledging the disease and then getting on with doing whatever I could plus a whole lot more.
In my 32 years in martial arts I have never found a workout that equaled the mental and physical benefits of Tang Soo Do until the Andrew Romeo Athletics regime. And, I also know from my experience with other gyms and other martial arts schools the teacher is even more important than what they teach. Andy Romeo is the real deal. He is the guy who is going to get more out of you than you believe you have if you give him the chance, I guarantee it.
Brian White
Brookfield, MA
Age 45
I’ve worked out on and off for 15-20 years, I’d do it for a few weeks get bored, stop for a few months and repeat the cycle over and over again. It was never a big deal as I guess I’m one of the lucky ones that never really gets out of shape or puts on weight even though I eat (and drink) what I like.
What I did notice over the past 15 years though, was that I’d gone from 197lb-212lb, but at 6′ 1″ it was distributed well enough that nobody would have considered me even close to being overweight. On my down times I was still playing soccer and so that kept me in somewhat decent shape. Last year I decided that I didn’t want to grow old gracefully and so made a concerted effort to workout 4+ times a week, I grabbed a great app for my iPhone and off I went. It worked very well, 2 months, dropped 7lb and reduced my body fat from about 22% to 18%. Worked out at about 8.5lb fat lost and 1.5lb of muscle gained.
Andrew asked me if I wanted to try something new, I just kept telling him that I’d finish my routine cycle and I’d think about it. About a month later with no more gains I decided to take him up on his offer.
Over the next two months, I worked out 4 days a week. The results were amazing, my weight dropped another 7lbs and body fat went from 18% to about 12% – which works out at about 12lb fat lost and 5lb of muscle gained. In the same timeframe as my own routine, I dropped 50% more fat and gained more than 3 times as much muscle.
Now lets get to the reality of Andrew’s workouts, while he is a great motivator and gears the workouts to people’s goals and strengths, it is hard work, especially in the initial phase when you go from being in what you think is reasonably good shape, to being in what is “really” good shape. I went from 3 to 15+ pull-ups, weights increased by 30-40%, burpees from 5-20 without needing a break, the list goes on and on.
The speed at which the body strength exercises, (pull ups, push ups, dips, squats, burpees, etc) are done forces a simultaneous cardio/strength workout, in my opinion, this means is that you are probably getting 4 times the benefit in the same amount of time as a conventional workout. The reason – you are doing anaerobic exercises fast, so you get in twice as much in the workout as a normal anaerobic workout, and as the anaerobic exercises are done with speed, you are getting in an aerobic workout, but with weights, whether artificial or your own body weight.
The first few weeks it took me 40+ mins to get through the exercises because I needed to rest so often, 3-4 months later the same routines are taking me half the time. So my total workout is about 10 mins warm up, 20 mins workout, total 30 mins a day, 4-5 times a week. 2 – 2 1/2 hours a week to get in awesome shape is not a big commitment – (A football/baseball game lasts 3 hours and nobody complains that they don’t have time to do that.).
Benefits I’ve noticed, at age 45, I can still play soccer with guys 15-20 years younger, and I’m as fast as I was at age 30. My stamina has gone through the roof, again back to soccer, I was at the point where after 10-15 mins I needed a rest, now I can go the whole 90 mins. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, and I’ve started to get a 6 pack, there are probably not too many 45 year olds can say that. A quote from my 12 year old daughter after coaching her soccer team was; ‘Dad, I saw your abs when you wiped your face with your shirt, and I was like, “oh my gosh, my Dad has a six pack”‘. I’m never seem to be tired, need a nap or get sick.
Everybody I see, including other gym members, comment on how good I look, and their next statement is invariably, how did you do that, how long did it take, etc, and they really seem interested. I won’t go into details about some of the other benefits, but let me just say my girlfriend is very happy.
I could have got even better results in the same time frame, but I didn’t adjust my diet, (I like my beer, cheese and peanuts too much), so don’t think that you need to go on a some special diet to get the results that you are looking for, it might take you longer to get there, but you will eventually.
Neil Whittaker
Manchester, CT
Age 45
