One thing I always believe to this day is that if you are involved in something, no matter how small that role is, you have a chance to do what you want to do. To win the game, you need to be in the game. With training, even when things weren’t looking great for me, I felt that I always had a chance to do what I wanted to do if I could put myself in the right situations.
I didn’t know what was going to happen when I made my first trip to Virginia. But, by making the trip, I met some great people and it opened me up to a whole world that I didn’t even know existed. Plus, when you’re around positive people who are good at what they do, you leave with a completely different mindset and it has a compounding effect.
Two months after that trip, I went from having no clients that were athletes to getting my first group of youth athletes. This group led to three kids sticking with me and, along the way, I’d pick up momentum and get clients during this four-year stretch that stuck with me for the next six-to-eight years.
John Errichello offered me the opportunity to train a youth hockey team called the Bayonne Rangers that were coached by Mike Smith. It was a group of seven and eight year olds that included Mike Deats, James Johnson and Smith’s son, Christian. It started off as a group of about six-to-seven kids per week, but, with any group of young kids trying a training program, the numbers dwindled down after a couple of months. It was definitely a learning experience training a group of kids that young, but it led to me keeping Mike, James and Christian as long-term clients. Throughout my 10 years, Mike Deats is actually the client that’s been with me the longest. I’ll have more on him in the next post.
Mike Smith was helpful as I was getting started because he was a parent that saw the importance of strength training and would spread the word that parents should send their kids to me, which was huge. James’ parents, Melanie and James, were also very helpful and would send me some of James’ friends to come and tag along. All of a sudden, every time you saw me in the gym, I was with a group of kids and was getting known as someone who offers youth training.
As I was working with them, I started my work with the Palumbo family. Robert Palumbo, who was my assistant principal, sent his son Christian, a hockey and baseball player at St. Joseph by the Sea, to me. Christian worked hard and could make the lighter sessions look intense because of how much he sweat. He was great because he was always the first session I’d have right after school. I’m already tired from school and session will dictate the rest of my day and he made the time fly by. He wouldn’t be the only family member I trained as his younger sister, Olivia, signed up a year later. She’s been with me for seven years, which makes her the second longest tenured athlete I’ve trained. Olivia and Christian were just two athletes that were all go for the entire session. I had to force them to take breaks. She was another determined athlete who would come to sessions in full uniform right after games to get her work in. The only thing that I’ve seen stop her in seven years was a polish sandwich. I’ll have more on her in my next post because she was one of the main reasons behind the training at the home gym getting started.
Another valuable member of the team who would join Olivia for some of my best group sessions and soon became the first college athlete I trained was Juliana Carrara. Three things I always think about with her are her finger pointing, dry sense of humor and mental toughness. The story I still think about to this day is the one I posted on Instagram a little more than a month ago. She had a two-hour plus drive back and forth to set up for college, but was feeling very sick. She self-diagnosed herself with the “plague” and texted me at 3 p.m. that she would be unable to make the session. She never cancels, so it was never a problem, but then, about 90 minutes later, I got a text that she would be there for the session. When you’re dealing with kids like that the training part is easy.
The high school training would continue to pick up with the additions of Ethan Bloom and Mike Stumpf. The one of the highest compliments I could give anyone I trained is they made the job fun and that was the case with Ethan, the baby goat. He was a lacrosse player at Tottenville and kept me up to date on all the lingo the kids were using. Training wise, I’m most proud of how he took things to the next level in college. He set a goal for himself and just got after it hard on his own and you can’t teach that. He came back for some training over the summer when he was in college, but the job was easy because he was doing so much on his own. Mike was another one who just brought the intensity every session. He was getting ready to go to Navy and already had a long day because he went to school at Xavier in the city and was on the swim team. We had to train later at night and you would never know how long his day was because of the way he attacked every session. Mike was a guy that made the most of every minute of every session. We had a goal to reach and a short amount of time to do it and we got it done because of the intensity and consistency he brought.
Towards the end of this stretch, the youth training picked up a nice boost from some good people at the gym. Gabe Pimenta sent over his son “Little Gabe”, who’s definitely not little anymore. It took a while to get Little Gabe to talk to me, but he came to work, just like his dad did every day in the gym. Big Gabe was always an advocate for my training and it really meant a lot to me when he trusted me to train his son.
I got another confidence boost when the owner of Intoxx Fitness, Mike Giliotti, referred his niece and nephew, Ava and Derek Fernandez, to me. I hadn’t mentioned it yet, but Mike, like John, is someone I’ve known at the gym since I started training there in high school in 2002. It was always good talking to Mike about the new gym equipment he was getting and talking about the seminars I went to. He always made me feel valuable. If you’ve ever seen him, you’d know he’s someone who takes training seriously, so it was an honor that he sent family to me. Ava and Derek came from New Jersey to train with me and you couldn’t ask for two better kids to work with. There was none of that brother-sister bickering and they were nothing but respectful and hard working.
Looking back at the end of 2019, it was unbelievable how far things had come for me in the youth/high school training department. It went from a pipe dream to it becoming something I was starting to get known for.
ADULT TRAINING WAS STILL GOING
Even though youth and high school training was my focus, I did enjoy training adults. Working in schools, I’m around kids all day, so it is nice to talk to people my age every once in a while.
I wasn’t a big fan of training people late at night, but one guy who made it worthwhile over the summer was Joe Ursini. I was working at a camp during the day and was usually pretty tired by night time, but Joe made it worth it. Joe was a pretty laid back dude, but he didn’t mess around during his sessions. I only had him for the summer and some time over the winter, but he made every session count. He worked in the city during the day and couldn’t get to the gym until late at night, so you’d think the sessions would be pretty easy going and not trying to do too much. The effort he put in and the progress he made left me with another problem, it was hard falling asleep at night because I would be amped up at 10 p.m. He was the first person I got to bench press 225 pounds, which if you knew what I was benching during that time, you’d know it was a big deal to me. He’d come in to the session saying we should take it easy, then the weights would start flying.
Just as I was finishing with Joe, Brian MacIver, a friend of John, came along. Brian, who had a nickname we aren’t allowed to say here, was the first person to give me cash for sessions. That right there put him at the top of the list. But, in addition to being a good person, he was willing to do whatever I had planned. He would deadlift, push the sled, use the ropes or whatever other thing I had in mind. If I learned something new and needed someone to try it out, he would do it for me. Whenever I went to a seminar, he would joke and ask me when we were going to be doing that.
Then, a friend from school, Stephanie Tritto, now Micciulla, signed up for training to get ready for her wedding with the great Andrew. Stephanie helped get me through graduate school, so it was only right that I do something in return. Stephanie would jokingly break my chops, but she was another one who would do whatever I asked. She would push the prowler in all directions, trap bar deadlift and any other exercise that works, but you wouldn’t associate with leaning down for a wedding. She was always accommodating and would come right after school or later at night, if it worked better for me. I could do longer sessions with her because Andrew loved working out and the longer I was with her, the more work he could get done. The last adult client I’d have during my time was Cheryl Lafer, who signed up because of the recommendation from Camille Faccio. Like Camille, she made great progress, losing 40 pounds in six months.
PERSONAL GROWTH
During this time, I accomplished some big personal goals of mine. I’ve written about them on here previously, so I’ll just add the links so I don’t have to rehash it again. I know coaches have their thoughts on certifications, but one certification I always wanted to have was the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) from the NSCA. This was one that I saw that a lot of the coaches I followed had and one necessary if you ever wanted to work with pro or collegiate teams. I couldn’t take it when I started training because you were required to have a degree in an exercise related field. When I saw that they switched the requirement to just needing a bachelor’s degree, I jumped on the opportunity and passed the test in 2017.
For a couple of years, Justin Kavanaugh offered to write a training program for me to follow. He always told me he would, but I felt bad asking him to do it. Finally, in 2017, I reached the point where I needed something new and wanted to see what his programming would do for me. It was a game-changer. It got me into the best shape I’ve ever been in, taught me a lot about programming and made me the strongest I’d ever been. The trend of me taking my training up a notch started because of this program. Here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of my time on his program.
I didn’t realize it at the end of 2019, but Ava and Derek were going to be a part of a core group of youth, high school and even collegiate athletes that took my training to the next level. They joined Mike Deats, James Johnson, Olivia, Juliana and Gabe in taking a career that I thought was finished to the next level.