Andrew Romeo: 0:00

No one's ever said, Man, I'm just too strong. I gotta get weaker. Man, I wish I wasn't that strong. Like, no strength is always a strength, like strength is markville strength is never a weakness. What are those like? So that's what I mean by a platform of strength and everything can be built from that. And I truly do believe that.

Philip Pape: 0:18

Welcome to the Wits& Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Wits & Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today is a very special one because I'm joined by Andrew Romeo, who's a longtime coach of mine as well as a friend and fellow entrepreneur. He owns Romeo athletics here in Connecticut, the gym that I joined 12 years ago, when I first touched a barbell I first learned the big lifts, I came to understand what strength was all about. So I have him to thank for introducing me to the world of lifting, which is saying a lot. If you've ever wondered how to make fitness a core part of your identity, how to balance the demanding roles of family work and life or how to make strength training work for you at any age. We've got you covered today from Andrews concept of a platform of strength to making fitness fun to the use of bloodwork and supplements and it'll change the way you think about health and fitness. Andrew Romeo's a man with a lifelong passion for fitness and helping people achieve their health and wellness goals. A husband and father first and foremost, he is the founder and CEO of Romeo athletics, the premier personal training and group fitness facility in Northern Connecticut now with locations in both Enfield and Avon. He's an entrepreneur who provides training and mentorship that works for each individual. And in my opinion, Andrew embodies an ethos of high integrity, self improvement and excellence. And he's always willing to go the extra mile to bring people up and help them succeed. Andrew man, I can't believe that I haven't had you on the show before but there's no time like the present.

Andrew Romeo: 2:10

100% I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me, Philip. I appreciate

Philip Pape: 2:13

ya, man. This is gonna be a lot of fun. We haven't caught up in a while. So just you know what's been going on with the gym, the wife, the kids with ethos life in general.

Andrew Romeo: 2:22

Yeah, I mean, life is busy. School is kicked back off, which is great because now the kids can go to school and they're not home all day, which is awesome. More of more for Kate, my wife and myself. gyms are busy. I'm between both gyms. Every day, I'm I'm done an Avon Monday, Wednesday, Friday. That's where most of my training happens up and field Tuesday, Thursdays, I don't have too big of a role there anymore. Don't get me wrong, I'm still involved with a lot of stuff. I just don't coach that many people,

Philip Pape: 2:53

the big guy hands growing business. You know, it is it is what it is. And

Andrew Romeo: 2:57

then as you mentioned, we have another business, ethos, medical selects and wellness. So that's also an Avon, too. So we've got a lot going on. It's it's all good stuff. It's fun. And to your point in the intro, which I appreciate the intro. It's very nice. Thank you. I'm always lifting. I'm always I'm always in the gym, I tried to live, breathe and eat what I preach. So it's I'm always in there.

Philip Pape: 3:18

Yeah, I mean, for the listener, I don't know. When I when I met Andrew right from the beginning, he's the kind of guy that just is unassuming about things you go in. He's like all about lifting just to supernatural. He gets clients in the door. And before you know, they sign up, they're not even thinking about it, because they're like this guy knows he's talking about and I just want to get fit. So I was there right early on. And when you were, you know, in that small box, and then he started to expand. So So anyway, I wanted to paint a picture of the listener for who you are. We talked about your role as a father and husband, right? We also know you're busy with the the extra location now. So how do you balance those roles, I mean, being an entrepreneur, being a coach all of it.

Andrew Romeo: 3:58

So it's interesting, because people talk about like a life work balance. And unfortunately, being an entrepreneur, I don't really believe in life, work balance, it all just kind of like weaves together all of the times. I've been really, really fortunate with my life. When we started the gyms when he joined. My wife was a high school English teacher, and she could kind of like float the bills while I grew the gym. And then we got to a point where she could come into the gym, and we could do it together. So her and I work together daily. And then in addition to that my kids are in the gym daily. So it's a really cool way for my kids to grow up where they view fitness, they view strength. It's just kind of like part of what we do. It's just who we are. We're not I'm not doing it just to be big and strong and stuff like that. It's, hey, we lift weights, because that's kind of what what's expected. It's fun. It's something that like, you can get some mental clarity from makes you feel better. And that's really the model that I try to portray to them. But like workwise I mean, I'm always working dude. I mean I'm sure you're similar, where it's the middle of the night you have thoughts going off, you're taking notes. And I embrace it. I like that also, like, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Philip Pape: 5:08

I love that answer, right? Because it's true. A lot of people would say, Well, you know, I have to schedule it in, or I have to keep this in this separate, or I have to make sure I focus on this, and then this, and you're like, look, it's just all my life like it is life. A lot of us saw that during the pandemic, right, we started working from home, people have office jobs, and now it started ticking like intertwine with your family a little bit. Like, wait a minute, it's kind of nice to be able to, like, take them to an appointment or this anatomy of the workday, but still get my work done. That 100% it's more natural, you know. So, so that's cool. I mean, you're a Super Down to Earth guy, and yet are able to handle all of these, you're always willing to help people. So what would you say, are your core values and principles behind, you know, giving you this opportunity, I guess, that you have now to change people's lives and also your own kids in the process?

Andrew Romeo: 5:53

Sure. I mean, the biggest one is integrity, all the way through and through, it's I practice what I preach, I'm never going to suggest someone do something that I wouldn't do. And then hard work and dedication, like everything in life, if you work hard, you're dedicated, and you act of integrity, those three things are going to carry you through and a lot of good stuff is gonna come from that. And like, to your point of when you're introducing the people feel that people see that. And that's how people trust you, where you're, I'm not trying to take people's money just to take their money. I'm trying to help them. Yes, I need to get paid. But like, I'm honestly, I want to see everybody win. I mean, you talked about the abundance or scarcity mindsets, I am so far on the abundant side of anybody that's near me in my circle, I just want you to win. I just want us all to win.

Philip Pape: 6:39

Yeah, I love that integrity. I mean, I. So again, for the listener, I can walk into your facility. And if we have to figure out a problem, it's not this long, drawn out discussion. It's like, let's go to the whiteboard and just figure it out. Let's just do it. And then and then trust people that they'll get the job done, which I can definitely relate to and people listening to because people always ask what is the what is the magic to consistency? It's like, Just do it. Get the result? And he's tend to motivate yourself that way.

Andrew Romeo: 7:07

Yeah, I agree. And there is no magic to like motivation, right? And consistency like and all that, like, we get into the gym when you get into the gym. I'm fortunate I work in gyms, I get to lift weights all the time. It's just part of my life. But like, as you said, just show up and do it.

Philip Pape: 7:22

Yeah, well, so speaking of that, that is part of your life. At some point, it had to start right and, and become a habit or routine. And maybe it was just super natural for you when you were young. But tell us how that happened. And how people who maybe aren't fit into fitness right now can get that same sense of identity, because I'm a big fan now of like saying like, we're all athletes, we can all be athletes, we just have to take on that identity and then let our actions serve that. So what do you think?

Andrew Romeo: 7:46

So I'll start on the second side first, because it's easier than how I started. So the second side is really finding like your Why? Why do you want to like, hey, I want to lose all this weight. Why do you want to lose that weight because that's what your motivating factor is going to be. And that's what you can start identifying as, and like, you don't need to be a rock star to get started. Like there's like start where you're gonna start. And that's okay. Hey, I can't walk 50 feet without taking a break. Okay, we're gonna walk 45 feet, and then tomorrow, 47 and 50. And whatever it is, start wherever you're gonna start. Don't be intimidated because everybody comes into the gym. And they think people are watching them. They think people are judging them. They think people like no one cares. Honestly, most of the time people aren't watching, you don't even notice. But if they are, at least in my facility, they're supportive. And they're like, that's great. Good for you. Thank you for like doing this for yourself. For me, where my identity identity with fitness and strength training came from. I've been in gyms Dude, my whole life really has been like I was the weirdo where we would go to like, whatever the version of target was 30 years ago. And I want those dumbbells and apparently they want dumbbells. So I've been in and out of gym since I've been literally like lifting weights, and I've been 12. And I pretty much haven't stopped the variations of what I've done has changed, which is a natural progression. Everything from bodybuilding, to powerlifting, to Olympic lifting to CrossFit to functional training, like it's all blended together and which is great because it just built my my toolbox of tools I can pull from and use. But I identified as physical fitness was something that I enjoyed from a small age. I've always enjoyed training, I've always recognized that the harder I work, the better I do. And I don't mind putting in the work to get the result I want.

Philip Pape: 9:42

Yeah, yeah. And your kids are gonna see like right off the bat, they're going to be in that culture, which is really nice. Like, I'm glad that my daughters can see that I work out and in a way that it's an enjoyable thing that this forced thing you know, just to quote unquote lose weight or sweat it off or whatever. And I remember coming into your gym the first time I think I had tried and Other CrossFit gym earlier in the week, and it was too far away. And I like I think I puked. And I passed out on the bed right that first time and then I came to your place. And you had a little bit of a more of like, let's really understand where you are now let's not just throw you into a crazy wide. Yeah. And I don't know what I squatted or the first day but I'm sure it was probably the empty bar. So it doesn't matter. It's got to start right. So how is your relationship with fitness evolve? You mentioned all the different things and how they blend it together. Do you have you left things behind? have you incorporated just a new perspective on those like CrossFit, for example, is a big one that I always think about because it's really changed over the years. Like what are your big priorities now? What have you maybe focus less on now as well?

Andrew Romeo: 10:42

Cool. So what I focus on now is I have two mandatory lifting days a week, I have a mandatory lower body day and a mandatory upper body day, I got to get them. It doesn't matter what day of the week it happens. They got to happen. And when I say that, it's the big list. So I'm squatting, I'm pulling, I'm benching I'm pressing, I'm doing pull ups, chin ups, RDL and all that fun stuff. What hormonally big muscle groups energy expenditure and metabolism. Super important. That's what I do. Do I lift other days a week? Sure. I might lift three, four days a week. The other days are more exhilarate days. So maybe I'm hitting more shoulders or back or fun things like that. My cardio kind of comes in the form of jujitsu. I roll jujitsu three days a week. So that's my cardio, things that I have left in the past. I don't really so I don't Olympic lifts anymore. It doesn't serve me. It doesn't deliver. It's highly technical. And I had a lot of injuries that came from it. I enjoyed the sport of it. I was relatively good at it. It's pretty strong. But you got to put a lot of time and dedication I was training for three hours of clip and so much of it is skill development. How am I going to snatch out like so. time and place it was great. I learned a lot. I still carry some of that I just got done training a high school kid, high school athlete and I teach one of the first movements he did today was a full clean, so he cleaned that he dead lifted. The clean surfaces almost a warmup first dead so he's got some power, so I'm gonna explosiveness then we move into his deadlift. Other movements like so I probably haven't crossed that in myself personally since 2012. It just, I here's here's my deal. I don't like quantifying success when you compare it to other people. Hey, you beat me by five seconds. That would eat me up. And I did God dammit. How did he beat me by five seconds? It has nothing to do your your performance has nothing to do with me. Why am I comparing? So after a while it starts like wearing down at you we're fitness isn't the competition. Fitness isn't about anybody else other than yourself. And when you start comparing yourself to other people, you're gonna burn out it's not gonna last Plus, there's a lot of other things with CrossFit. I didn't like but I mean, there's just a lot of dangerous aspects of movements that I don't think are necessarily necessary. You don't need to be snatching high speeds repeatedly. You don't need to be climbing ropes if you want to. That's cool. Go do it. I appreciate all movement. I just personally moved away from that. Yeah. If that's someone's thing, they're like, I love it. This is what I do. Good for you. The same way I feel about walking. I love to walk great. I mean, is it gonna be everything you need? No. Can you do better? Yes, but is it better than nothing 100%. So like, that's kind of where I've fallen into that. Other things are left behind honestly, like I pretty much 100% Trap bar deadlift at this point, puts me in a better position, My back feels better. I haven't knock on wood rec see this? I haven't I haven't heard my back in years since I trap our deadlift. I have more of an in between squat between high bar low bar. Whereas one of US Olympic lifter, a high bar I hurt I hurt more often high bar I put more pressure on my knees, more pressure on my lower back. I move that bar to a low bar kind of Campbell. It's more hammies glutes less pressure on my back less pressure on my knees. Typically I bench using the Kabuki bar. That's here's real grit. So I feel better. I feel I

Philip Pape: 14:05

am multi grip. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Andrew Romeo: 14:07

Like that bar was my shoulders and better positions. You got to remember, as I said, I've been lifting since I've been 1238 match my joints got a lot of wear and tear on it. I might be strong, but like I gotta I gotta be selective of what I do.

Philip Pape: 14:21

I think everything you just said it's like the master class in how people want to think about as they age, preventing injury evolving with your body, right? Because I haven't been in nearly as long as you but I had the age factor being 42 and I just had rotator cuff surgery. And before I had that though, I'd moved to the neutral grip bench and I and you start listening to your body more and more right as Yes. And don't let anyone tell you that this is the one right thing even though the trap bar I know there's like for example the starting strength community there's there's a whole like hardline against it. And you know, the rest of us are kind of like more in this. Okay, that's a little bit dogmatic. Let's start Let's do what works for you. And you're right. I've seen it be successful with with for a ton of people. So if if you had to, you said two days or you're like heavy lifting days, if you had to break down the simplest, I'll call it efficient, maybe or effective way that most people getting started would make the best use of their time. Right? If they don't know what they like yet. It's not for you know, competitions, not anything. It's just for general health and fitness. What would be the most effective approach? Principle wise, you don't have to give exact programming?

Andrew Romeo: 15:31

No, absolutely. I'm so certain Thanks. That's a good job. It's linear progression. Yeah, I mean, so and she said, you said your start, right. So you are a novice athlete, you do not need to do anything fancy. If you do fancy things, you're actually just shortchanging your results. It's a basic linear progression, you're gonna squat, you're gonna deadlift, you are going to do pull ups or your variation or pull down. You're gonna do chin ups or chin pull down, you're gonna bench you're going to shoulder press. Anybody throw some stuff in at the end, but it's every week, just stepping up, stepping, stepping up, until that progression no longer works. For some people, it might be 10 weeks, some people might be 20 weeks. But if you've never done a basic linear progression, you should I don't care what your training age is. Go back and do it. Because you're gonna get all that little strength out from where you started. Most of the time, it's five. I mean, having people do three sets of five. So when you talk about that, Hey, okay, what's that? That's myofibrillar hypertrophy. Big word, little myofibrillar is and your muscles are getting thicker, you're getting stronger. It's amazing, right? And then after you've done that, like so typically, people that I've worked with for a while they've gone through the linear progressions will do a periodized approach of sarcoplasmic, hypertrophy, neuroma, then myofibrillar hypertrophy. And then you go into neuromuscular efficiency. For people that don't know what I'm saying, we're getting you big, we're getting you strong. And then we're testing your nervous system to see how strong you are. And then we rinse and repeat it over and over and over again.

Philip Pape: 17:05

It's fun. Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Romeo: 17:07

And like, a lot, I know you've done a lot of weight gains, weight cuts, weight gains, then you start Mimic, like mirroring that in with your face of lifting. And Amazing things happen, right? You get really, really strong or you get really, really cut up. It's all fun stuff. I went to high level for

Philip Pape: 17:27

No, no, no, no listener loves that. I mean, we sometimes get in way more detail than that. Maybe, maybe I shouldn't, but sometimes we do. So yeah. So periodization, we talked about that in nutrition, like you mentioned. And you're basically saying the same for lifting that keep it super simple. Increase the load initially. And then eventually, you can add more of the fun stuff. And you don't even need to work out that many days a week, right? Three,

Andrew Romeo: 17:49

three days a week, three days a week is all you need. Like, like, that's a big misconception, right? And aw morning, like you. And this is kind of weird, but you only get stronger while you're rest. You got to earn your rest, but you only get stronger while you rest.

Philip Pape: 18:03

Right? So now, what about making it fun for people, right, because that's the other aspect I know is big for you, especially when you want people to stick with it, your trainer, you know, you've got the the interests of both helping people get stronger, but also wanting to see them succeed and not just leave after a week or two. And you also like helping children to with their movement. I mean, even my kids did your couple of your classes, and they had a lot of fun. So we don't want something to be something we feel like we have to do. How do you make this fun and effective for people? A lot of the training we do

Andrew Romeo: 18:35

now is semi private training or private training. And I think the fun or stickiness that comes from what we do is interpersonal connections. The trust factor, hey, I know what you're doing. I know where we need to be. I know how we need to do it. And then the fact of like, working professional, anybody that's listening, when you come in, you don't have to think anymore. I got you don't worry. Like I know your weight progressions. I know the movements we need to be doing today. And like also, how are you feeling? Are you tired? Are you hung over? Are you whatever you're at, I will take care of that. And make sure that today's workout is the best workout we can have. So that's kind of on the adult side, what we do on the kids side? Well, we play games, we have fun. We we try to make it more fun because honestly, that's how it should be for kids. Unless, if you aren't like the kid that I was training as a high school athlete, he has a set goal. He's on a linear progression. We're making sure that he's getting stronger for his upcoming sports season. Fun isn't as new. His fun is results every week and it's linear progression, etc itself get better. That's his fun. So it's all about kind of what stage of a lifter you're at what you're looking to get out of it. And I am running another session of the homeschool PE right now. Right I got I think I have 12 kids in it. It's great. And like they work really hard, as you saw, they're working hard, but they're with friends. They're having fun. They're joking. I try to keep it light hearted. I don't force anybody to do anything. If you don't want to do it, no problem. You don't have to do it like and there's no judgment passed. I'm not going to judge you for that. That's okay. So that's kind of, like a little bit more low key laid back. But I think in the long run of things, that's how we should like there's no need like people could this stereotype about gyms that it's like meatheads and super Blair and death metal, and we're screaming at people, that is not it. That is not what we do.

Philip Pape: 20:35

Unless you want that there are other gyms for that. There are gyms for that. And like,

Andrew Romeo: 20:39

some people do seek that out, but it's not the majority of the population. So

Philip Pape: 20:43

it's, you know, you get a lot of great answers. And what it tells me is that there's not a one size fits all right, like everybody's waited, they stick with something or find motivation differs, it might be in a group are in a semi private situation where you have the community, it might be the one on one where they need that personal understanding from you as the coach, or what you said, like the trust factor and knowing their knowing their physiology and how they respond in their lives and everything. It might be people working from home, who just need guidance on programming, or they need guidance on whatever, there's a million ways, but at the end of the day, you hit the nail on the head when you said results. Because I imagine if you had people coming in you did all those things. And they weren't making progress, they will still stick around, right?

Andrew Romeo: 21:23

Yes. No matter what you have to deliver on whether they're

Philip Pape: 21:27

Yeah, yeah. Who was it? Somebody mentioned to me how, you know, they go to the gym every every day, and they're just not enjoying it. I said, Well, what are you doing? He's like, Well, this is my routine, like, Well, tell me about the routine. Tell me about the load, you know? Well, it's the same weights every Oh, okay, I got it. I got it. I got you're not making any progress. So it's just this boring, repetitive thing for you. Alright. Yeah. notching the weight up a little, and see if you start to enjoy it more. When you get exactly,

Andrew Romeo: 21:49

yeah. Give yourself a little bit of a struggle for it. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 21:53

Yeah. That's such a great point, you work for it. You may not look forward to it beforehand, but you get in the gym and you do it. And you find out it's a lot of fun when you when you get that

Andrew Romeo: 22:02

squat. Absolutely 100%. I agree. And in

Philip Pape: 22:06

a gym like yours, you know, like you said, it's not competitive. It's everybody's kind of supporting each other no matter where you are. And I get that feeling of seeing somebody coming in for the first time. And I'm just so excited for them because I know what's ahead in their lives. And I just, I don't care if it's an empty bar, I'm like, look at you doing that, you know, my mom's squatting with just to a chair to get stronger now is exciting me, you know what I mean? Because she's gonna get stronger. So

Andrew Romeo: 22:32

that's awesome. That's awesome that you're moving. You got to do something like that. Because that's like, huge for longevity.

Philip Pape: 22:38

Yeah, and yeah, you mentioned that earlier about why this is so important, just for everything in your life. So what do I say I always get go off on tangents wrong. So let me see what kind of questions I have for you. What about you mentioned the kids, so there's more of the athlete, teenagers, right? Who, who, it's not necessarily fun for the sake of fun, it's more the progress and competing, which then makes it fun. Let's say a kid came in and a parent wanted a certain outcome and the kid wasn't into it. Do you ever get that kind of situation? And then they, there's a way that you approach it and embrace it? Yeah. So I had something similar in

Andrew Romeo: 23:13

the past where the kid the parent can pretty much like drag the kid in as a he needs to be more active. And you're the person that making the act? Yep. So in those situations, it's going through trying to find like exercises, the kid doesn't mind doing having fun with it. And again, like, I'm never gonna yell at anybody. Like, that's just not who I am. I mean, you, I've coached you plenty of times, I am not the in your face, yell at you, I'm going to talk to you, I'm going to have a conversation with you. I'm going to encourage you to work harder and do things. And most of the time kids respond pretty well to that. But honestly, like, if I was training somebody and the kid was like, I started crying, or I don't want to do this. I'm going to talk to your parent and being like, I'm sorry, I'm not the person for you. Because I'm not gonna force your kid to do this. This is just not aligning with who I am. Yeah,

Philip Pape: 23:59

I was just curious about that. Go. Yeah. All right. So as we as we got ready for this interview, you mentioned a term I hadn't heard you use it before. But you called about you talked about building a platform of strength, a platform of strength, that can be universally applied to sports, life health, through different stages, different styles of training. Now, we often talk about strength as a foundation for everything else like it's the foundation of fitness. And maybe that's what you mean. So I'm intrigued with platform of strength is tell us what that's about.

Andrew Romeo: 24:28

That's foundational strength platform was shaped very similar. I think my personal opinion, lifting weights is going to help pretty much any aspect of your life if you want to be stronger, you want to live a long time you want a better quality of life great those are the physical sides. You want to be more mentally want to be happier. You want to be sharper, like mentally acute. You want to other cognitive benefits lifting weights is going to help so I mean, yes I own gyms I've been in gyms my whole life. I believe in weightlifting, so I have a bias. But that platform of strength if you are strong, only, like no one's ever I've said this before, you've probably heard me say this. No one's ever said, Man, I'm just too strong, I gotta get weaker. And I wish I wasn't that strong. Like, no strength is always a strength, like strength is markville strength is never a weakness. What are those like? So that's what I mean by a platform of strength, and everything can be built from that. And I truly do believe that

Philip Pape: 25:26

I did to man and and the funny thing is, you, yes, you have a bias because you're a trainer, but you're also totally invested this I can tell for the rest of your life, because you know how effective it is. And it's just completely aligned with how you help people. And I've gotten into that just from my personal transformation, and now wanting to help others because I see this above everything else. Make it supersedes everything else in your life, because anything you want to do, gets improved by having a stronger, thinner body, right?

Andrew Romeo: 25:56

100% I mean, you gotta live in this thing for the rest of your life, you might as well take care of it.

Philip Pape: 26:02

Absolutely great. And live several extra decades hopefully with you know, with all that strength to deadlift to your trap, bar deadlifting when you're 95. So I hope so, for sure, man. So one of the most common questions I always get is, you know, how do you train IE, fill in the blank after 40? Or after 50? There's always these cut offs. And I'm like, I'm 42 I'm not that old. Right? So how do you adapt training styles to based on someone stage in their life based on their fitness level? How should their mind set expectations, all these things involved when it comes to strength training as they age, like, what are the extra factors that come into play?

Andrew Romeo: 26:38

Okay, so as you get older, your training volume is probably gonna drop, you're gonna need to recover more. Weight progressions probably won't move up as quickly, we're going to take less risks, because injuries take a lot longer to recover from a big thing that people miss is that, hey, whatever you do in the gym should be making you better outside of the gym. So if you're getting hurt lifting weights, we did something wrong.

Unknown: 26:58

That's a Philippe an awfully for a long time. I don't know how passionate he is about healthy eating, and body strength. And that's why choosing to be my coach. I was no stranger to a dieting and body training. But I've always struggled to do it sustainably really helped me prioritize my goals with evidence based recommendations, or not over stressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving. In six months, I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy. But now I have a more balanced diet, I weight train consistently. And most importantly, I do it sustainably if a scientifically sound healthy diet and a link strong body is what you're looking for. Philip Pape is your guy.

Andrew Romeo: 27:43

I'm just a lot more cautious when I'm working with athletes that are aging. I mean, we're all aging. It's just I mean, we all were teenagers at 1.2. And you're a lot more resilient. Also, when I'm working with older people, we take in a lot more considerations of their limitations, how your knees how's your hips, you talked about your shoulder or your shoulders? What's it what's our range of motions look like? So as a coach, there's way more of a checklist that I have to go down of just watching everything you're doing. Have you had surgeries in the past? Do you have any metabolic diseases? Do you have any other crazy things that I need to be aware of that you have this nerve issue or whatever it is? And then I have to build something around that that's gonna fit you the best?

Philip Pape: 28:26

Yeah, I like how straightforward you answer that question. Really, it does come down to recovery, right, and injury and rehab and all that stuff. It's so true. And I think a lot of people who are getting into it for the first time in their, say, 30s like I did, you just you just want to be aware of that and be smart about it, but not use it as an excuse so much, you still want to push hard and train hard. But man does those CrossFit days especially you really beat me up and and I know it's different than training, strength training.

Andrew Romeo: 28:56

I was gonna say a big thing with that. So another thing that a lot of people make the mistake of is they want to copy someone else's program. Hey, I saw so and so do this. So I'm going to do it be like Well, what's your training age versus their training age? What's your training restrictions versus nurture? Like, like you used to hear this a lot in the Olympic weightlifting I'm gonna do this Bulgarian, whatever program to turn up Bulgarian here, not one of the top 1% athletes of that country and you're not probably taking a lot of steroids. So that program is probably not going to fit your best. But go do it if you want to like it's, it's just don't. Do you need something that's built for you. Don't just copy someone to copy because you saw someone doing hip thrusts and now that's the thing you're doing.

Philip Pape: 29:40

Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. And going back to what you said earlier, just starting with a simple progression, cuts out all that complication. Anyway. So we talked about recovery. We talked about training as you age keeping it simple, not copying other people's programs, especially because you're probably not taking peds and not from Bulgaria. So what is is like what is one or two of the biggest mistakes people do make when it comes to strength training? And maybe that's again, something you're able to address when you're there as a trainer. Ego.

Andrew Romeo: 30:12

Ego is the number one thing, right? I saw this 17 year old lifting that and I'm 35. So I can affect to me that 17 year olds been lifting for five years, and it's pretty advanced. And this is day one for you. Like, you are the number one thing that gets people all the time that's injuries come from,

Philip Pape: 30:29

is that mostly men, though? Yes, mostly men,

Andrew Romeo: 30:32

mostly. And I will say for my teenage athletes and kids, girls listen way better than boys, like girls are like, I will do what you said how you said it, I will move how you said, or boys are like I'm gonna put more weight on, because I want to put more juice, here we go. So that would be number one would definitely be ego. Number two, I would say is just not sticking with it long enough. Hey, I did this for three months, and I didn't get the results I want. Okay, like, I don't know what you want. Like this is a lifelong journey. Like it takes a long time to put on muscle and really build sighs I've been working on this forever. I mean, you probably when you join the gym, I probably weighed about 175 pounds. So think 12 years later, I sit around like 225 or so that's 12 years of lifting weights, like that's in seriously lifting weights and eating and like pushing and like, yes, it doesn't have to take that long. But like, it takes a while guys, nothing's going to happen in one month, two months, three months, it's going to be life changing. Maybe it'd be life changing.

Philip Pape: 31:41

And I think they say the average genetic limit for males something like 40 or 45 pounds over like six or seven years of like injury free hard lifting in your metabolic peak. You know what I mean? Like, you started Fortunately, you started when you were at, you know, the testosterone in your 20s. So you got that benefit. That's That's why also the nutrition man. I mean, you talk about not sticking with long enough. I mean, if you're, if you're lifting for three months, and constantly trying to diet that's also gonna hold you back.

Andrew Romeo: 32:08

Yeah, exactly. So I mean, nutrition is your jam. And you can clearly understand, hey, I'm trying to lose weight. Most of the time, it's really hard to gain muscle while you're doing that. That's, I'm trying to gain muscle. But I haven't put on all this fat. I don't know what's happening. Yeah, that happens to that's where we have that periodization of like, bulk, bulk, bulk, couple bulk cut. And yet, they're shortcuts. I could talk to you about shortcuts with that. But then you start talking about hormones and peptides and stuff. So you start I mean, that's the supplement game where you can, you can get different results really quickly. With legal thing. It's not illegal by any means. It's just a different different take on it.

Philip Pape: 32:50

And ya know what, I'll we'll get into that in a second. For sure. Actually, I'll be just one more question about training. And then I want to get into work and stuff. When people come to you for the first time, I imagine just like I see it on the nutrition side, all sorts of misconceptions, questions that are like, oh, man, you know, I know they've been watching some influencer, right, of course, that they bring you what are the real common ones? You hear a lot?

Andrew Romeo: 33:14

I hear a lot about the kids stuff. I mean, everybody asked me, Is it okay for kids to lift weights? That's when you talk about youth training? That's the number one question. And the way I answer that is, I teach movement patterns. As long as we keep the weights under control, and the movement patterns are correct. No one will get hurt. We don't really start to increase weights until kids hit puberty. Because then as you just said, they have all of the hormones and then they get these crazy results here. Wow. That's amazing. I wish I could I wish I could progress that

Philip Pape: 33:46

and what ages are those? Generally? I mean, I know puberty can range but gender from boys and girls,

Andrew Romeo: 33:50

any typically you're getting 1314 year olds where I start, like, cool. Let's get that linear progression going. Let's start tacking on weights. Let's start moving this, this and everybody's different. Some people will be younger, some people, some boys are 1617. And like they're just kind of late to puberty. They're late bloomers. Okay, no problem. We'll get there when we get there. I mean, you can see it, you can see like, Hey, you can tell when someone doesn't have those hormones. But because those weights don't change. It's always hard. Like I'm getting better my movement patterns are getting better, but the weights aren't getting better. And then they all of a sudden start getting a bit more testosterone in their system and more growth hormone in their system and all of a sudden, wow, coach. I mean, really show up. Yeah, look at that.

Philip Pape: 34:33

We always had that elixir.

Andrew Romeo: 34:36

Right. So that's one of the biggest common ones and then all everybody comes in they first thing they want to talk about rightfully so is all of their injuries and all the reasons why they can't do the things and mine is you can do the things. It's just a matter of how we're going to do them and the progressions that we take and like, I mean, you've been in the weight world long enough. There's 10 different variations of a squat. I can Pull out. I mean, and there's not one right answer. And okay, your knee hurts. I'm gonna have you sweat like this, okay, you're back. I'm gonna have you squat like this, okay? Your shoulder hurts. I'm gonna have you squat, like, you know, like, there's so many variations. And that's why people if you have serious concerns, talk to a professional, like, talk to someone that knows what they're talking about, and they'll find you the right answer.

Philip Pape: 35:19

That's the way to do it. And let me tell you, you have four limbs. So if you could use one of those, you can do something.

Andrew Romeo: 35:27

I've been watching your training to felt that you've been putting it up where you're recovering from your shoulder thing and exactly what you're doing. Hey, if I can't use my left arm, I'll use my right arm. Yeah, somehow my left arm is recovering. There's there's science to show that works.

Philip Pape: 35:40

That's right. The cross training effect. Yeah, I want to do a podcast on that. That's actually good idea. Yeah, I was doing one arm deadlifts for a while too, which are their own little, but I was glad I could use two arms again, because then the load goes way up. Absolutely, absolutely. Ya know, so those are really good ones, right? Is it safe for the kids to lift? I think that that is a long held myth of like, you know, it's gonna stunt their growth and all these ridiculous things. And I don't want to one of the best examples people say is, well think about farmers, kids, you know, like, from the time they're little, they're slinging hay bales. And they're doing all sorts of weightlifting, naturally. They're not stunted are they? They're nice and big and strong.

Andrew Romeo: 36:14

I mean, anybody that's ever had a little kid that jumps off of their couch or jumps off of something, and they land really hard, the amount of force that just went through their knees, hips back, is 1000 times that of what they're going to be squat. Like, they're okay. I promise. Okay.

Philip Pape: 36:30

Yeah, and then not making the excuses. When you come at the beginning of, well, I can't do all this because of my shoulder. There's a way there's always a way.

Andrew Romeo: 36:37

Just talk through the person. Yeah, explain what you have, and then be open to where they want to bring. Yep. Always seek

Philip Pape: 36:43

out. Yeah, seek out an expert for any of this stuff. The older you get, the more of these risks you have. They're not excuses, but you definitely need to have good counsel. Good. Good information. Right. So that's. So an interesting area that you're more involved in now is with ethos medical in Avon is using bloodwork right? Working with a medical professional who can customize supplements, hormone treatments, really anything that kind of fills the gap. That's why I like to think that fills the gap once our nutrition and lifestyle are where they need to be because we don't want to use these shortcuts. What is the importance of bloodwork and supplements as part of a fitness plan? How can people use those talk to us about it.

Andrew Romeo: 37:21

So the biggest thing with the blood bloodwork part, it's like getting like a diagnostic for your car, you're getting to see how everything's functioning it like so for a guy how's your testosterone looking? What are all the other level I mean, even basic bloodwork for health purposes of cholesterol, blood lipids, all those things are all really important for guys that are coming to a supporting what are your PSA levels looking like for prostate stuff like these are important things to know. And a lot of times your general practitioner is just glossing over it, seeing if anything pops and moving forward. And I'm like, so talking about testosterone, right? Like the average range is like 300 to 1000.

Philip Pape: 38:00

And if you're anywhere in there, you know, quote unquote, normal.

Andrew Romeo: 38:04

You're normal, you're good. I am happy to be transparent and share my numbers. My numbers. Testosterone number before supplementing was at 240. It was at 240 and it was there for years. I do I eat well. I exercise, I get sunlight, I go for walks, I sleep, I do all the things and I was still literally clinically low. Okay, so I got my bloodwork done, I Kristen, who runs ethos, we work together and we came up with a plan so what I do is I get my bloodwork done every eight weeks I am taking supplements through her one of them being TRT which is testosterone and I last bloodwork I got done my testosterone was at 980 You want to talk about like lifestyle changes of like how much happier I feel how much more energy I feel and nevermind strength gains strength gains and muscle gains like it makes a big difference.

Philip Pape: 39:02

I think I need to get my blood checked

Andrew Romeo: 39:05

it's a game changer. It really is

Philip Pape: 39:07

yeah What about so for men it's pretty straightforward with the TRT the free test and all that for women. So I've learned a lot about this or nutrition now with with the progesterone the DHEA and testosterone estrogen. A lot of I understand a lot of that stuff is it's difficult to measure through bloodwork and you need like urine and saliva and other types of tests you do they do that as well you guys do that? So that's I'm gonna completely forget to grill you about all that. Okay.

Andrew Romeo: 39:35

i Yes, I am involved with ethos, but she's really the person so like any any lesson I can talk about my own personal experience, but higher level stuff, I gotta I gotta defer to her. Yeah, so

Philip Pape: 39:47

what would you recommend for just the average person both men and women to do if their fitness and nutrition or fitness and nutrition aren't quite where they need to be? Can they still pursue the bloodwork and supplements kind of in parallel with What's the thought there?

Andrew Romeo: 40:01

I would say yes. Only Yes. Should you dial in your food? Yeah. Should you dial in your your exercise? Yes. But checking to see what's going on under the bloodwork one might motivate you a little bit more, when you really get a big picture. Hope man, I didn't know I was in this poor of health. Or maybe, hey, I'm actually in pretty decent health. So what it could serve as a motivated effector. And to if you're is like lowest iOS and testosterone, it's really hard to get results. And you if you're new to this, you might find it really frustrating. And you might feel like you're beating your head against this wall over and over again, we're getting your levels regulated, is going to put you into a place where you're getting the results that you shouldn't be getting, because your hormones are regulated. And that's where like, I don't compete in any sports anymore. It's not like I'm being drug tested for this stuff. And even if I was like, Hey, listen, I'm clinically low. Like, I'm bringing myself to level playing field at this point.

Philip Pape: 40:58

I agree, man, that what I've learned about TRT is just that we are as a population of men, and this is a problem for women to just, like you said, clinically lower than we need to be. And oftentimes, it's not even clinically low. It's just you might even have symptoms, right? Even if you're at like three something. percent. Yeah. And the doctor is like, that's normal. Because I've heard both both sides of the coin of like, if you have symptoms, and the bloodwork doesn't show it, the symptoms are important. If you don't have symptoms, but you're clinically low, that's important as well, right? So everybody's going to need some form of replacement, probably at some age for the rest of their life, I would think.

Andrew Romeo: 41:35

And there's always this like big stigma with dudes for testosterone. But how many people do you know ladies that are on a thyroid monitor? Guess what? They're on that? They're on that hormone med for the rest of their lives? Because the biggest thing I hear about testosterone? I don't want to get started because I'm have to be on it forever. Yeah. I mean, it's a hormone that you're lacking with your dad. It just is what it is. I mean, again, just speaking from my personal experience, if there was going to be I mean, I guess the number one supplement that I recommend is creatine because I believe everyone under the sun should be using creatine. But if you really want the most effective supplement, it'd be testosterone. Yeah. At least from my personal experience.

Philip Pape: 42:17

Yeah. And what for so it ethos, what does that look like? You just do you make an appointment? Do How does that work? To get your

Andrew Romeo: 42:24

go online, go to our website, ethos, medical esthetics.com, right. So go to our website, and just go through and schedule a wellness consult. So all you're gonna do is you're gonna sit down with Kristen, she's a PA

Philip Pape: 42:40

for local, it's not local. So it just seems to be in the Connecticut area. Yeah, that's so

Andrew Romeo: 42:45

if you want to do peptides, you could do this. Online, you can't get to sastra. But you can do peptides. And peptides can do magical things as well. Like anything from immune system stuff to Muscle Gaining stuff. And you don't need to do it in person console for peptides just for hormones. I'm actually the state regulations and things like that. And I do take peptides as well. Again, I can't really dive too much on the science side of that, I'd have to defer to Kristen for that. But there's peptides that can do magical stuff. So like you want to talk about like rehabbing your shoulder. I know people that have used peptides and cut down the recovery period, because their body now is producing more growth hormone. And now it's healing faster. And that's where there's some science and some some stuff that is now available to people that wasn't previously that can really change how quickly you can get results. And also, what do you need it for? Are you sick all the time, it's winter COVID is coming around whatever it may be, okay, look at some of these answers. Or someone like yourself, I just had surgery, I want to get back to play faster. Okay, we can look at these things. And again, talk to a medical professional. We're a private practice. So we listen a little bit more, and we don't use insurance. So we can take our time and really work with somebody versus going to a primary care and you have 10 minutes. And as long as you're not dying. Get out.

Philip Pape: 44:08

I have little to no faith in in PCPs anymore. Just so you know, you're preaching to the choir on that, like I've met very few that are worth anything to I'm sorry to say and if you're listening, and you are and you're a good one, then then great. We need more out there. Especially for women's health care. I feel like there's this gaslighting everywhere all the time. And I don't know what it is. Maybe it's just what they learned in medical school. And that's all they know. And they they open the root cause book and it's like you have this, this is the answer and then move on. But hormones is still kind of in its in its nascent period here. We had Dr. Rand McLaren and you know Dr. Rand McLean, he's pretty big peptides and and TRT is out of California, a perfect early episode. He also talked about peptides as well and I get it they're proteins, right? They're just proteins. But they a lot of them can do interesting things. So we're definitely gonna throw that in the show notes so they can check it out. Is Is there any scenario where somebody needs intervention beyond lifestyle? beyond what you've already talked about the TRT, any other supplementation I guess, is what I'm getting at

Andrew Romeo: 45:11

me, you probably see me say this all the time, eat more protein, use that as yourself and lift weights.

Philip Pape: 45:21

Call man, what's next for Romeo athletics.

Andrew Romeo: 45:25

So Avon, I mean, the Avon location right now the goal is to grow Avon as much as we can help as many people here as we can. And if it just gets to the point where I can launch another one, I'll do it. But I mean, our goal is, as has always been, I personally enjoy working with people in person. So we are in person coaching facility. It's either private or semi private. For the most part, we offer a couple of group classes here and there. But for the most part, it's semi private and private training. And that's where we are, that's what we do. And my goal is to help as many people as we can help. And really, I really, like I don't know, if you've seen this at least, I really like how many ladies are coming in and saying like, I feel like I just need to lift weight awesome. Like something has changed in the world where people are like, recognizing, like lifting weights is important. And it's amazing. And it's awesome. And it makes me really excited. Because I have fought this fight for so long of being like I promise you won't get bulky. I promise you're not gonna get crazy biceps and from lift, like, prompt, like, unless you really want to,

Philip Pape: 46:29

but like, Yeah, cuz it's hard to say it's hard for us to do a bulky,

Andrew Romeo: 46:36

like, I have lifted weights for for ever, and to get big and bulky is impossible. Unless you

Philip Pape: 46:42

take a lot of drugs. Yeah, no, you're right, man. It's true. I mean, I haven't been in the business very long. But even I see plenty of women saying like, how do I build muscle? How do I build my and it's a great, it's a great thing, blah, how do I feel? How do I build muscle and strength instead of cutting a night and let's build muscle? Well, I

Andrew Romeo: 46:56

think they're also getting to people are getting Hey, muscle is also increasing my metabolism. So then in turn, I'm gonna lose more fat, and I can eat more stuff and get away with stuff now. Like, I mean, my basic thing left he protein.

Philip Pape: 47:12

That's it. We're gonna Well, I do have to ask one more question that I asked about yesterday, and I can leave you off the hook with this, and it sometimes throws people off. But what is a question you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

Andrew Romeo: 47:23

Question I wish you would ask. I don't know. I mean it professional, personal. I mean, you could ask anything about lifting weights? What's your favorite lift? What's this? What's that? Or on the family side or anything on that said, I'm an open book, dude. As you know, you can ask me anything.

Philip Pape: 47:40

It's more for you to tell me what you wish I'd asked. But that's the let's go with a lifting. Let's go the lifting question. Yeah, so you talked about your routine. Now, what does that look like in terms of like loads and progression scheme?

Andrew Romeo: 47:57

Like loads, you want specific numbers? Like squatting? I probably squat weekly. No, and like low fours. Sometimes I'll push it up a little bit. My best squat ever was in the mid fives like 550.

Philip Pape: 48:15

Points. Yeah. Yeah, it's

Andrew Romeo: 48:17

this point, it's too heavy. Just walking that out on your back. It's just a lot of spinal compression. There's a lot that comes with that, that people don't realize when you start pushing those weights up like you feel it like your knees, feel it your hips, feel it, your back feels it, even if you have all the musculature to support it. I haven't really tried not to squat with belts and some just recently because like, I'm getting strong, and like, I can live decent amount of weights. I don't need to really belts for that. I really liked the Kabuki, benching bar. It makes it harder, but like interested, I really like it and then exhibited an

Philip Pape: 48:51

angle perfectly. Okay, so

Andrew Romeo: 48:54

go for a walk. Let's see how the thing works. Right. I'll show you guys get a little tour of the gym.

Philip Pape: 49:00

Yeah. For the people on audio. We're walking through the facility. It's a couple give it Yeah. Okay. So it's kind of like a curved bar with multiple neutral angles. There we go. So slight angles. Yeah.

Andrew Romeo: 49:14

Yeah. So you get that like neutral grip with a slight angle. And then it like, it makes you go a little bit deeper. So a big fan of that. I really liked the fact of that. But I'm sorry, I flipped your question. No, no, no.

Philip Pape: 49:30

You're the only one that let do that to me. No, just kidding. No, that's cool. People are always interested in this stuff. Man, what are they gonna say that? Oh, you know, years ago, you had me squatting with the now this is in the CrossFit days, but we were doing like I guess you were like rack squats. You'd call them to kind of overload before doing the main squats. You still do stuff like that for your squat?

Andrew Romeo: 49:51

Um, me personally not as much. I'll probably end up doing I don't know if you if you do squat Tober or not. So Exercise fitness company called sore necks. Their major fitness player they run a free program every October called squat Tober. Um, you squat five days a week and they definitely bring in a bunch of different squatting patterns. If I was focused on driving my squat number up, yeah, I would do rack squats. I would take shit from the bottom. We've hit different depths. I actually biggest honestly, one of the exercises that not a lot of people know about but I really liked for getting your squat number up. Hatfield squat. Are you familiar? The Hatfield squat? So I know what it is. Yep. So Hatfield squat, think safety squat bar. So I use the Kabuki one, so it just sits on your shoulders, I don't even have to hold it. So it just sits there, walk it out, you have handles you're holding on to squat down, drive up holding on to those handles, typically, you can overload that. So think it's an overloaded eccentric. by a good margin man, like I've squatted over 600 views and a Hatfield squat.

Philip Pape: 50:53

So that's interesting. Oh, hold on. Now I'm really curious, because I've been using safety bar exclusively because of my shoulder because I can't get the grip around for the normal squat. You're saying you could load a lot more by just holding the rack in front of you do you have to have special handles.

Andrew Romeo: 51:07

I put Kayson because I'm holding here, but you can hold the rack here just like that. And you can sell it because now on your way up, you're getting a little bit of your lat pull yourself up. So you can get an overload or do centric on that. And your squat will go through the roof.

Philip Pape: 51:22

How does that feel? Back? Awesome. Okay, all good. Now, you just gave me something new to try. Oh, man.

Andrew Romeo: 51:28

That is like one of my favorite like, non normal squatting things. Because everybody when people look at squatting, they're always like, Oh, it wasn't below parallel this or that. And being like, Listen, man, the below parallel thing came from powerlifting. That's where that came from. Because they had this sort of standard to measure success by I don't care if you squat below parallel, and I want you to squat to where your best movement pattern is. Does your knee hurt? Does your hip hurt? Does your back hurt? This is you can't judge it because my hands are holding on to something. But check it out. See what you think. And so every safety squat bar is different if yours doesn't hit that right angle, swing up to the gym, because my so I have the Kabuki one where it can adjust. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the transformer bar up there. So you can come in, adjust the transformer bar, come check it out and see what you think.

Philip Pape: 52:18

Cool, man, I'm gonna try that out. So that does that make it more quad dominant when you do that.

Andrew Romeo: 52:24

Because you'll sit back into your hammock, same thing sit back and your picture, but rather than the Barbie hips, or the belt behind your hips, it's on your shoulders.

Philip Pape: 52:35

I like that idea. Because this typical safety squat bar movement is slightly more like a front squat, right? It's a little more quad dominant, so that to get his more in the back, like the low bar that I love and miss right now. So

Andrew Romeo: 52:46

I've been very, I've been very fortunate that I've pretty much always choose that Kabuki bar. So I don't even know what like a traditional safety squat bar feels like because I'm always adjusting angles and playing with things. So I've just been fortunate in that regard.

Philip Pape: 53:02

Cool, man. Well, this has been a fun conversation all sorts of different directions. I hope the listener got a lot out of it. I know they did. Yeah, I know they did, man. And the last question of course, where do you want people to find you?

Andrew Romeo: 53:14

Find me at Romeo athletic stuff, fitness, ethos, med medical esthetics.com instagram romeo.aj or Romeo athletics or Romeo athletics at Avon, I got a million.

Philip Pape: 53:27

I'll keep it simple in the show notes. Like one.

Andrew Romeo: 53:31

Google me. You'll find me there.

Philip Pape: 53:33

All right, Andrew, Romeo, man, it's always been a pleasure. It's awesome to be in your circle and know you. And it was a fun conversation. So thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. I'm

Andrew Romeo: 53:43

always super proud to see your progressions. Man. You've done some big things and it's awesome to see you help so many people.

Philip Pape: 53:48

Yeah, man. It's all it started with you to be honest. So we're all just paying it forward, which is what we want to do. I love thanks for coming on. Of course. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.