'My true gift': Trainer Tony Ramos brings creatives together for health and art
In 2015, Austin producer Christian “The Mask” Herrera was living the life of a typical studio artist: going to bed late and getting up around noon, subsisting mostly on greasy takeout, and losing track of time in a dark studio with no windows. The most exercise he got was walking from the studio to his car or hauling equipment for the musicians he worked with. That's when he met Tony Ramos. As a lifelong musician and creative himself, Ramos was familiar with the often unhealthy routines of artists. Lucky for Herrera, fitness is Ramos’ other lifelong passion, and he was ready to help his new friend, and other creatives in his circle, get fit.
Ramos is the owner of East Austin Athletic Club, a full-service gym where he has built a community of Austin folks who attend exercise classes to support each other’s creative endeavors as much as they go for the workouts.
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Along with your standard fitness lovers, Ramos’s classes at EAAC attract a large swath of Austin artists, such as Moody Bank$, TheBrosFresh, Trey The Chef, DJ Ella Ella and Quentin. Sometimes famous musicians who hear about the gym through word-of-mouth will drop by for a session when they’re touring through the city. While he doesn’t want to intrude on client confidentiality, he says that he’s trained people more famous than the drummer of Fall Out Boy, Andy Hurley, who is also an occasional client. Many of his clients are acquaintances from the music scene or hear about him through fellow musicians; he manages and shoots video content for R&B/Hip-hop duo TheBrosFresh and songstress Moody Bank$, and is well-known in hip-hop and DJ circles.
“Our creatives need to stay healthy so we can continue to do this for the long run,” says Ramos.
Born and raised in El Paso, Ramos has been performing music for as long as he’s been athletically active. He started playing guitar at 6 years old, around the same time he got into school sports, and quickly became heavily involved in both. Several of his cousins are also musically inclined (his cousin Eddie Valdez recorded songs with R&B two-hit wonder Frankie J), and by the time he was 14 they’d formed a band and played local house parties and small venues through high school.
“There was always a song playing growing up in my house, and there was never a weekend I wasn’t playing sports or going to a tournament,” says Ramos.
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His high school athletic career left him with several long-term injuries that drove him toward studying personal fitness and mobility, and he completed a Crossfit certification after graduating in 2011. He quickly discovered a passion for helping others get physically fit and decided to put college on pause while he explored the possibilities of personal training.
“I was like, ‘Man, if I could do this for me, I could show other people how to feel good, right?’”
The Crossfit gym where he started teaching group classes closed down shortly after he got certification. A still teenage Ramos borrowed $4,000 from his father to build a gym in their garage. Clients followed, and he was soon training 20 to 40 people a week at the home gym and paid his father back within a year.
He still had dreams of being part of a larger music scene, and in 2014 he moved to San Marcos to gain a foothold in the Austin area before moving to the city itself in 2015. Ramos remembers his brief tenure teaching group fitness classes to seniors at Planet Fitness in San Marcos as some of his most rewarding work.
“I got the chance to make an impact and make them feel like someone actually valued what they wanted to achieve and listened to their stories,” says Ramos.
“It was cute seeing them come in their Sunday best, like there’s Mr. Frederick and Judy!”
After moving to Austin with his cousin Rebecca, Ramos worked door gigs at clubs and music venues to familiarize himself with the local scene while looking for a position at a gym. Vince Barbosa from now-defunct MMA/Crossfit gym East Side Austin Elite eventually gave him a job teaching group classes and training MMA fighters (Ramos later hired Barbosa to manage EAAC). Within months Ramos took over the schedule. When East Side Austin Elite closed in 2017, Ramos took his gym following and started teaching “underground” workout classes in the Crux Climbing Gym parking lot. His dedication caught the eye of two of his former clients from East Side Austin Elite, who wanted to partner with Ramos in opening a gym, and the East Austin Athletic Club was born.
Since EAAC opened in February 2019, it’s become much more than just a place to stay in shape. Along with regular community events, such as the “blankets and brews” gatherings at Zilker Park, flag football tournaments and themed runs, there are parties celebrating anniversaries, holidays and East Austin. As often as they can, Ramos and the EAAC staff support TheBrosFresh charity Tankproof, which partners with Keep Austin Fed to give away free groceries and meals every Saturday in East Austin. EAAC’s front desk manager coordinates the grocery giveaways while Ramos captures and promotes content for the charity.
When COVID hit, Ramos let everyone who retained their gym membership bring home a piece of equipment, and when they reopened eight months later everything but a single dumbbell was safely returned.
“I get to share an hour a day with amazing people. Not just famous artists, but the whole community I’m coaching,” says Ramos.
The community spirit carries through to the group classes where a majority of members are from the creative scene, including studio musicians, singers, artists, painters and designers. Ramos uses his intimate understanding of how musicians live, and what they need to perform their best, to customize workouts. For example, he’ll sometimes have the musicians pick one of their own songs and sing it while riding the exercise bike or jumping rope. They also promote local artists and shows: Friend, client and singer Moody Bank$ credits her workout class for improving her vocal endurance and with helping to fill her audiences at shows.
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“Going to the gym hasn’t just made me physically more fit, but it has made me more confident. We get to see each other every morning and talk about our lives and our shows and music,” says Bank$.
Within months of working out with Ramos and changing his diet, Herrera put 30 pounds of muscle on his spare frame, and began going to bed early and waking up at 8 a.m. to get a workout in. TheBrosFresh experienced a similar change; one night after playing a show, an astonished Ramos saw the duo heading out of the bar early. They wanted to get plenty of rest so they could train the next morning. TheBrosFresh and Herrera also recently connected through Ramos, and now they’re planning to record together.
“Bringing people together is my true gift,” says Ramos.
“I’ve found a way to do it through music and fitness, and at the end of the day my goal is not just to get them healthier, but collaborating with each other.”
East Austin Athletic Club
Where: 4909 E Cesar Chavez St. Suite C.
Information: 512-382-7877; www.eastaustinathleticclub.com
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Creatives get fit and support for their art at East Austin gym
