Feel the Power of Accomplishment with the Tri-Fitness Challenge with Al Rosen

Interview Transcription

ADRIENNE: 
Welcome back. And thanks for listening to the Team Lally Real Estate show home of the guaranteed sold program. We’ll buy it. I’m Adrienne and I’m Attilio. And if you have any questions, just give us a call at 7999596 or took us out online at Teamlally.com.

ATTILIO: 
Our guest today has been training athletes for 48 years. He owned the Boddy Shoppe Gym in Tampa from 1977 to 2005, where he trained over 300 professional and collegiate athletes.

ADRIENNE: 
He was a gym owner, a physical education teacher, a coach, a former professional wrestler, and a fitness trainer. In 1997, he created the sport of tri-fitness. Please welcome our guest, Al Rosen.

ATTILIO: 
Hey, all you there. Aloha. Aloha. And I’m gonna start off to start off our show for Al’s part of the show with a quote from Al “Cost nothing to be nice.” That’s right. That’s it. Yeah. So go ahead, Adrienne.

ADRIENNE:
So, so So Attilio and I had the privilege of actually competing in this tri-fitness and this most recent one in 2023. That was fun. Yeah. And we just we really wanted to spread awareness and information about the tri-fitness challenge. So

ATTILIO:
So I’ll start us off with how did you get into the business of fitness or the fitness business?

AL: 
I guess it all started when I got a degree from University of Tampa physical education. And I opened it in I graduated in 75. So I came out of high school as athletic came down to University of Tampa as a baseball player, I was always interested in. I never went home after school, I always played the sports heroes year round, so I was always interested in sports and fitness. And then I opened up a gym in 1977, and the third gym in the history of Tampa. And it just everything went from there. And then 20 years later, I decided to start a fitness event, which would be played on a level playing field with real rules and regulations. And, and be able to challenge people and having to come up with coming away with feeling the power of accomplishment. So it was a fitness challenge. We’re more than the event. People come from all over the world, from South Africa, from Canada, all throughout the United States. And, and I was ye and we welcome we welcome everybody to come challenge themselves.

ATTILIO: 
Now you’ve so modest but let’s go back to the now see I grew up in born and raised here in Hawaii and like wrestling back then we had this guy called the missing link. I still remember he was missing a cut. Some of his chromosomes were missing. He just thought he was a good wrestler. He couldn’t do math too well, but he could body slam you. But I mean, wrestling was big back in Hawaii back in those days. And you were here little did I know. And and you got to know a certain family, the dad and then and then everybody on the whole planet knows who the Son is. Who was that? Mr. Johnson.

AL: 
Back in the day was Polynesian professional wrestling. And the promoters of Polynesian professional wrestling was high Chief Peter Maivia. And his wife Leah. We’ve had a rock scram compares. So I’ve known rocky and at the Johnson Dwayne’s parents forever. I’m actually his godfather, and they live with me back in, I guess, when playing was about five or six years old back in around 77, 78. We’ve been close every family ever since. Unfortunately, a couple of years ago, rocky rocky passed away three years now. And And assuming one day Dwayne will be moving back to Hawaii expressed interest.

ATTILIO: 
Well, we know he’s here all the time and visiting and shooting movies and stuff like that. And we know I think grandma and grandpa are actually buried on a wall.

AL: 
Yeah, yes. Yeah. Both of them. And I was very close to it to his grandparents, also. And I wound up over there in 19 of the 479 then celebrated Christmas and center and New Years there in Waikiki, and we live at Kapiolani Street. And so a lot of the stuff that you see on the NBC show the young rock is is true and when they when they actually wanted descriptions of the apartment and stuff they contacted me. They know my memories for Do good, but it was the 16th floor. I forget that 1616 Something Kapiolani. Yeah. That was a question. I remember. Yeah. But yeah, I got I got fond memories of Hawaii.

ADRIENNE:
Yeah. And we know that the rock has also endorsed this Tri-fitness. We saw an old video of him endorsing it. Yeah, I think it was from around the time when I had first done this competition with you back in 2001. So

AL:
he said do some videos back in 98, 99, 2001 that you won the shows? Well, we’re in Hawaii said they fall from the video phone message back when the camera phones weren’t elaborate as they are today. Yeah. But yeah. But Adrienne started with us when she was living down in the Fort Lauderdale area. And then she went to Vegas and competed. And she went to California and competed and won our shows, I believe Orlando. So then all sudden, she joined the army and wound up in Hawaii.

ADRIENNE: 
And I missed you know what, though, and I missed the tri-fitness so much. It was like one of the things that I missed about the mainland was

ATTILIO: 
you did it in 2001. And 2023.

ADRIENNE: 
Yes, yeah. Two years

AL: 
22 years later. It looks better. She looked better physique wise. 22 years later. Yeah. Just shows you all the get the body muscles.

ADRIENNE: 
That’s right. I had the baby muscles back then. I just couldn’t, couldn’t warm them.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah. By the way, for those of you listening to the show, if you go to any of our social media platforms, you’re going to actually see the visuals of the stuff that we’re talking about here on the show. So always students any of our social media platforms, but Al back to you. We got so we so Adrienne and I both So initially, you started this off it was women only.

AL: 
Yeah, then. Yeah. Then a couple years after, after we we started by 2000 2000. Yeah. That was a clear water show in by that time we went to Vegas, the two sides of the wall. We have men competing. He then later on, we added kids. So we have kids, three years old running, you know, two, three years old, running the show, and they go run. That’s what got him going on to we scale things down to get over 80. Once we get over 80, we scale it down a little for you. Because we do want you to

ATTILIO:
Yeah, I think a five year old and an 80 year old we’re competing on the bench presses. No, so

ADRIENNE: 
So you make modifications for people that are over a certain age so that they can still participate, but participate safely

ATTILIO: 
now? Yeah, go ahead. No, it was mainly focused with the women. But why did you add the men? No, that was that was an interesting story you share why did you add the men?

AL: 
Well, turns out, I mean, we just I just wanted to challenge everybody. Yeah, a lot of these ladies, women had trainers or they had husbands or boyfriends and might as well so you know, after a couple of years of doing it, we just we just added them. But back in the day, when when guys are working in the gym, they had different sports imagine playing the basketball leagues and they might have been playing softball league or whatever to help women and once they got past high school or college, they were limited so they went to gym, they weren’t really sure what they want to do. As it developed, you know, straw became stronger, faster, etc.

ATTILIO: 
Now we know like right away if people want to sign up this is coming up in October of 20 Wait, is it October of this year? No next year 2024 Yeah 2024 October what is it? What’s the website at Oh yeah, trifitnesschallenge.com And so I just want to throw that in there real quick people can go there

ADRIENNE:
and learn more they can sign up I know Al has clinics he actually has like additional things that you can do to get ready for this challenge. Yeah,

AL:
I do I do online training I help people out again program to do you know and and everybody all you have to do is my give my phone number 813-263-2779 Send me a text message. Let me know you’re interested we’ll catch up and then we’ll we’ll figure out what’s best for you.

ATTILIO:
Well, we you know, to from our first time experiences, we just turned it into a vacation because we went all the way from Hawaii and one of the things that we did was we just had a good time in between with with because Tampa is a great place to visit there. You know there’s a nice like a bike path that goes from Tampa to what is it Clearwater? Yeah, that was fun and beautiful beaches.

ADRIENNE: 
Yeah, I mean, it’s a great. We

AL: 
have so many. We have. I know you come from Hawaii, but we have some of the nicest beaches in the world.

ATTILIO: 
Now, now if again, if you’re hearing the show right now, you can go on online and you can see Adrienne’s performance, or fitness performance. So let’s talk about all the different categories, again, run through those. And the thing that I want to point out is that as the the women can do everything, but the men can do everything except for the bikini contest, because you are banned from the bikini contest. You can be in the audience, but we will not allow you on the stage. In your bikini for the men for the man.

AL:
No, no. The guys, the guys run the obstacle course same obstacle course, the girls, they do the same. Same true grit challenge. The women, same shuttle run same box jumps. The only thing different is the benchpress. They do 80% of their body weight, versus women at 60%.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah. And the one thing I’ll tell you about if you guys, if you guys out there, you think you’re like in shape, the obstacle course. Yeah, okay, you probably get through that. But the true grit, if you’re not preparing for that, prepare to have whatever you ate the last 24 hours to be left on the field, have a bucket handy as you’re gonna lay down was tough. And I work, I work out somewhere between one and three times every day. I’ve done the Spartan Ultra, which is 30 miles and 60 obstacles, it took me like 12 hours. That true grit was one I don’t know, it’s like a minute or two or three. And that was tough. That was like one of the toughest thing has ever done. But that should be appealing to those people that want to challenge themselves. That’s why the word challenge is in there.

ADRIENNE: 
That’s great. So, you know, what are the things that I won’t like what I’m trying to explain this, like you were around before this whole like Ninja Warrior, and Spartan, it seems like this was like one of the first kind of obstacle course challenges. And you know, like when people try to understand what it is, I’ll use those terms. And they, they get excited.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, it’s not like family picnic obstacle race. This is like fitness challenging.

ADRIENNE: 
Monkey bars

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, it was cool. By Al’s went to his house, and he has the whole kind of like bits and pieces of the setup at his backyard. And so we got to go there and practice and get some coaching. And then you have clinics, right? If people come early, they can go to show up to clinics.

AL: 
Yes, absolutely. And, and, and there’s ways to simulate the actual course also. So when people once people register, and the training, I’ll tell them how to go out to a field and out like, you might you might not have incline decline monkey bars, simulated by doing bear crawls, etc. You might not you might not have a 15 foot carving out to flip over. But we could teach our mind how to flip over with open the hand grip. And if you could do a half a chin up, you could do that you could simulate that on the course I do a mountain climbs into a forward roll. So there’s ways to simulate their real lives living in the prairies of Manitoba.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, we met I forgot what the lady’s names were. They were from Canada. And they were, you know, I remember what she had told me. She says her grandkids, nicknamed her soft grandma. And she didn’t like that nickname. And so she, they signed up for the thing. And I think it’s important for human nature to have a goal that you work backwards from or towards, as opposed to just going to the gym, they’re like, I’m not gonna go there and fail. So they came and they were successful. And it grew. And they came as a group

ADRIENNE: 
because they were supporting it.

AL: 
They all come from Montana.

ATTILIO: 
That’s right. And then Adrienne, you had that interaction with the 62 year old?

ADRIENNE: 
Oh, yeah, I just wanted to share with our listeners that it’s like, you know, the age of the competitors. You know, like, I know that back in, I’ll had mentioned in 2001 When I started it was, you know, between 25 and 35 was the average. And then, you know, nowadays, it’s, you know, like there’s a lot more people that are 50 and up,

ATTILIO:
you know, 45 to 55 You know, how you track and these ladies are hotter than than most 20 year olds, and they have income jobs and good credit scores.

AL: 
Yeah, well, once you get over 45 And you sometimes they mature a little more.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah. Yeah. So the I thought it was a great event. And it’s not what people think, you know, with the fifth with the bikini contest and all that’s just

ADRIENNE: 
a very small part of it. You don’t have to do that part, right? You can do

AL: 
the physique is actually a byproduct of proper nutrition and the intense type of training that that people do to prepare for the event. So so actually a byproduct and some of these women, you know, who are 55 years old that were put on a bikini on the beach, suddenly after after 8 months of training their butts off. They’re going, Wow, they look in the mirror or your and your husband goes, Wow. Okay, and next thing you know, I say, grace and physique. I’m doing it.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, one lady said this is working out and preparing for this fitness challenge was better than a facelift.

ADRIENNE: 
I remember back in the 2001 that I had competed in, there was a lady who had released about 100 pounds, you know, as a result of preparing, and she was just, you know, happy, happy to be able to put on a bikini and feel good about herself. And to me.

AL: 
There was a woman from Georgia. Back in back in 2001, I remember she lost 100 pounds.

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, well, we’re encouraging everybody to go to our web page. And look at the tri-fitness challenge. We have their stuff there. And then you can actually on this website, you will be able to see a webpage, you’ll be able to see agents routine.

ADRIENNE: 
Yep. And then also, you can just go to trifitnesschallenge.com and get more information about the event. You’ve got more than a year to prepare. Yeah,

ATTILIO: 
no excuses. It’s

ADRIENNE: 
so much fun. It’s totally worth it. Just you know, go check it out. Yeah.

ATTILIO:
So we hope to see you there. 2024. October, Tampa.

Hey, there. Oh,

I think they should say that on the rest. Yeah.

AL: 
We will we welcome everybody. Bring your family, grandparents bring your kids and grandkids?

ATTILIO: 
Yeah, good. Good to have him in the audience and or, you know, maybe running the obstacle course and everything else.

ADRIENNE: 
Okay. Well, thank you, Al. Our show is coming to an end. But we really appreciate you sharing about the tri-fitness.

ATTILIO: 
And I think about six months out again, we’ll probably have you on the show to talk about it. Again, to remind the people that signed up, get new people to sign up and get some more butts in the seats to this competition, because it was fun.

AL: 
I appreciate aloha to everybody and be well

ATTILIO: 
Thank you, Al

ADRIENNE:
thank you Al,

AL:
okay, bye bye.

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