A Young Trainer’s Journey

By Vince Gabriele

For www.EliteFTS.com

I am lying on the floor of the Parisi Speed School after an 18 minute workout. My heart feels like it is about to come through my chest, the lactic acid buildup is about to make me puke, and this crazy guy named Martin Rooney is standing over me telling me that I have just finished a level three hurricane workout. There are five levels to Martin’s new system, and it will take some time for me to get to the level of some of his Olympian judo warriors. That was the last and most challenging workout of my strength and conditioning journey to the east coast.

After a long summer of banging 55 sessions a week, I felt I needed to take a little time off. I flew back to New Jersey, my home state, to attend a college buddy’s wedding. After a fun weekend of partying, my two weeks on the east coast were just getting started. My plan was to visit as many gyms and learn as much as I could from the experts. At 27 years old, I realized that there might not be another time when I would be able to take a 17 day trip. My passion for knowledge about sports performance training grows everyday. The chance to learn directly from guys like Martin Rooney, Mike Boyle, and CJ Murphy really excited me.

My first visit was to Chelsea Piers in New York City. This is the most unbelievable facility I have ever seen. If you have any interest in fitness, this is your Disneyland. There is a quarter mile track around the entire complex. Inside of the track, there is everything you could imagine—a boxing ring, basketball courts, weight room, Pilates, pools, and several places to eat, including a restaurant right on the water. There was even an Olympic platform. I warmed up on the heavy bag and then started doing power cleans. A trainer came over and asked me to not drop the bar and to let it down in a controlled manner because I was disturbing the people around me. I guess I forgot to read the sign.

From attending several conferences, I have kept in touch with some of the presenters. This is something I recommend to any trainer out there who wants to get to the next level. They are just an email away. My next stop was my first of two grueling workouts with one of my mentors, Martin Rooney. He is the director of the Parisi Speed School in Fairlawn, New Jersey. I told Martin I would be in the area, and he invited me to train with Joel. Joel is at the Olympic level in judo and is making a push toward the upcoming Olympic games. Joel was about 6’4” and every bit of 300 pounds. It was an honor to train with one of the world’s greatest athletes.

I did not want to just go to different places and watch. The fact that I was actively involved in the session made it a totally different experience. When you actually train yourself is when you will understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. Then you can implement the techniques for your own clients. The following was the workout that we did.

· dynamic warm-up (Parisi style) for 30 minutes

· 16 lbs hammer chops,  3 X 16 (chop on a tire, switching sides every hit)

· 12 lbs hammer rotational hits,  2 X 5 high, five middle, and five low each side

· tire flip 2 X 15 (five flips with three different weight tires per set; went from 400 lbs to    300 lbs to 200 lbs tires as fast as possible)

· hand over hand thick rope sled pulls (four sets, each set was the length of the rope 4 X)

· sled dragging, 140 yards forward, 140 side walk, 140 backward drags, and 140 forward   (no rest between sets)

Martin demands perfection on every rep and every set. Training in that type of competitive environment is a world of difference. Joel and I competed during the tire flips and rope pulls. I came close to beating him on the flips, but he destroyed me on the rope pull. “Attention to detail is what separates us from being good and being great.” —Martin Rooney

The next trip was to the New England area. I dropped my little sister off for her freshman year of college and visited my old college football coach who was now the head coach at this particular school. I asked him if I could spend some time with his head strength coach. We walked into the weight room, and the non-travel squad was doing some agility ladder work. He introduced me to the head strength coach but that was the most contact we had. He didn’t seem like he wanted me in his weight room and made it very clear. I observed the workout and asked him a question or two. He answered me in a one word response while he walked away from me.

My next two visits were awesome. The next day I traveled to Massachusetts to see CJ Murphy at Total Performance Sports (TPS). I knew Murph was a good guy when he spent 15 minutes on the phone with me trying to give me directions. Boston is the worst city in the world to drive in. TPS is a strongman facility with everything from atlas stones to 700 pound tires. Murph invited me to train with him and his buddies. I can’t remember everyone’s name, but this is who I trained with: Murph, Junior Beef, a 50-year-old female champion powerlifter, and two other enormous dudes. Metallica was blaring, Murph was throwing things around, and we were all getting ready to train hard. This was the workout that we did:

· deadlifts (sets, reps, and weight varied according to who was lifting)

· chain suspended good mornings

· glute-ham raises

· backward anchor chain drag

· core work

Murph sat with me after the workout and offered his advice on everything from business to training. He is a very smart guy and gets an enormous amount of respect from his members and clients. The chance to see the variety of people under one roof was amazing. Some pearls of wisdom from Murph: “Stop talking, that bar isn’t going to lift itself.” —CJ Murphy

My final visit to the New England area was to the Boston University hockey weight room. I had seen Mike Boyle speak several times and was excited to meet him and get a chance to pick his brain. I was a little nervous, not knowing if Mike would throw me out of his weight room because I asked a stupid question. It was the exact opposite. He was very happy I came to visit and sat down with me for almost two hours.

I had about 20 questions written down on paper that I wanted to ask him. I set up a tape recorder and just listened to everything he said like it was gold. Mike has a way of making you understand things that you never thought you could. I walked out of that place like a kid on Christmas morning. I cannot tell you how much that visit to Boston University meant to me. Here was a world famous strength coach who didn’t know me from a hole in the wall, but he took the time to sit down and answer my questions.  

My middle sister works out with a personal trainer in New York City. I drove in and joined her for a workout. The roles were a little reversed in this situation, as I felt I knew a little more than this guy. I offered him advice on different people to learn from and how to prepare for the CSCS exam he had coming up. I learned a great lesson on this trip to the city. Her trainer was not the most knowledgeable, but he has helped my sister change her body and improve her quality of life. That is what training is all about.

Are you getting results? Do people like you and do they keep coming to you? I thanked him for helping her and told him to make sure he kept her on the right path. We then ate at some little eatery called Pump. It was a health food joint with pictures of every famous athlete and bodybuilder from New York on the walls.

I even ran down to my former high school, New Providence. I still keep in contact with the coaches so I walked right into the office. Coach was so excited to show me the new weight room. When I went to school back in 95–98, there was a huge universal jungle gym, bench press (of course), hack squat, and leg extension/leg curl machine. Wow times have changed. There was no equipment, just eight power racks with platforms and a glute-ham raise. Maybe now they will win State.

The last visit of the trip was back to the Parisi Speed School. Martin wanted to put me through a new system he had been working on. Before we trained, we talked about everything from training to relationships. Martin is a very motivational and positive person. In his combine training video, which is the best one out there, he not only talks about training and how you have to be perfect, but he talks about mental preparation and how you need to bring yourself to a level of unconscious competence. At this level, nothing will get in the way of what you need to do. This is what we did. There was no rest at all during this workout, excluding the warm-up hurricane level three which lasted 18 long minutes.

Dynamic warm-up (Parisi style)

Hurricane Level 3

Set 1 (three times through)

25 second incline treadmill sprint, 9.0

Dive bomber push-ups, 10

Pull-ups, 10 

Set 2(three times through)

25 second incline treadmill sprint, 10.0

Band push-downs, 10

Standing pull-downs, 10

Set 3 (three times through)

25 second incline treadmill sprint, 11.0

30 lbs MB crunch, 6

30 lbs MB V-up, 6

10 lbs MB rotations, 30

I didn’t write this story to bore you about my trip back to the East Coast. I simply wanted to send a message to all trainers who want to get to the next level.

I want to share some of the lessons that I learned. One lesson is about the relationships that I built. I didn’t know any of these people a few years ago, but now I feel that I have made some contacts with some important people. Get yourself out there and talk to everyone. You do not know where it will take you. I am confident that if an athlete asked Martin Rooney who he should train with in San Diego, my name would pop up in his head. I learned that some coaches will be more than available to help you and others will just treat you as if you weren’t there. I experienced both on this trip, and I’m sure it isn’t the last time that someone will not be willing to help. Hopefully, there are more people like Mike, Martin’ and CJ. If there are then our industry will get that much better. Lastly, when you do visit a facility, jump in and train if possible. As mentioned above, this will greatly enhance the experience and more effectively contribute to your learning.

For the last five years, I have read countless articles and books, seen many DVDs, and attended every conference that I could. Do not stop there. If you ever have the opportunity to take a trip like this one, jump on it. As I am flying back to San Diego, I am chomping at the bit to get back to work and implement some of the things I have learned. We need to have passion in our business—a passion to learn, a passion to train yourself, and a passion to make a difference in someone’s life. The people mentioned above all made a difference in my life simply by spending a couple hours of their time. I hope down the line I will have the opportunity to do that for some young, hungry, motivated trainer. A special thanks to Martin Rooney for giving me the idea to write this story.

Vince Gabriele is the director of football development at Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego. He can be contacted at vincentgabriele717@hotmail.com.

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