Underweight kid turned into popular longtime Colorado Springs personal trainer
Mar. 30—Personal trainer Joe Ramirez loves a mountain climber.
His client on this warm Friday afternoon does not.
"Does everybody hate these as much as me?" says Kevin Shortt before crouching down, placing his hands on the ground and his feet on Core Flytes — gliders that allow his feet to move easily back and forth on the fitness studio floor.
"I don't think anybody likes these," says Ramirez.
Shortt is nearing the end of his hourlong private training session. He's been a nonstop ball of movement since warming up with lunges, windmills and TRX suspension weight training exercises while peppy tunes played on a giant boom box. Ramirez has been his constant companion, a quiet yet formidable wall of strength who provides exercise after exercise to 59-year-old Shortt, along with regular nuggets of encouragement: "Good job, sir" and "Squat lower this time."
Shortt, a UCHealth heart surgeon, is a regular client of the perpetual Best of the Springs personal trainer winner. He's popped into Ramirez's studio in eastern Colorado Springs about three times a week over more than nine weeks, and proudly reports his stats: Eleven pounds, 2 inches and 10 years taken off his age.
And don't forget the other benefits: "Like a lot of surgeons, we spend hours bent over," says Shortt. "Joe pointed out my neck and shoulders and that I was creating muscle imbalances. My wife said my posture was much better after a couple of weeks."
It doesn't come easy, of course. Ramirez makes him earn his keep.
"You're killing me today," says Shortt between moves.
"Somebody's got to do it," answers the trainer.
For almost 30 years, Ramirez has helped his clients push, pull, crawl, leap, hop, squat, lunge and crunch their way to better health. It's his life's work. His passion project.
"My biggest thing is discovering new ways to help people live better lives using random objects and movement-based exercises," says the Palmer High School graduate, "whether it's keeping up with their kids or having more energy to get through their day."
Ramirez didn't start life as an athletic guy. He was an underweight kid who lasted one season on the wrestling team before he quit — coaches were focused on the heavyweights and middleweights and didn't pay attention to the smallest member of the team. But his effort wasn't in vain — it helped spur him into reading, researching and studying fitness, kinesiology and building muscle so he could transform his body and improve his life.
After high school, he started working on a business management degree, while also working to earn a fitness certification from the American Council on Exercise. He started taking on clients and made a natural progression into personal training, a field that was just gaining a cultural foothold in the early '90s. Eventually, that business degree fell by the wayside as he started working at gyms around the Springs and his clientele increased.
"I saw the benefits of what it had done for me in terms of improving my confidence and getting in shape and getting more fit," he says.
Bally Total Fitness, Fitness 19, World Gym, Gold's Gym. Ramirez spent time in many of the gyms around town before getting burned out on using the same old weight machines. Not that machines don't have their place, he says, but they tend to control your movement pattern.
"If you're on a machine doing a press overhead, I'm only going to get stronger at that angle, compared to if I were to pick up a box and put it on my shelf, which is this motion," he says as he mimics a movement. "They (machines) tend to be overrated. It leads people to believe they need a machine in order to get a good workout — where is the machine for this body part?"
He quit the gym life and went out on his own in 2005, intending to become innovative in his approach. These days he's focused on movement-based, functional strength with constant tweaks to add variety and keep it interesting.
"We're meant to move. And we're not taught or conditioned how to. As we grow older, we become sedentary and we get desk jobs. We live life and come home and sit on the couch and we don't move. And then we move wrong and we tweak something."
His approach has morphed even more over the last year, as the pandemic kept people away from gyms and fitness classes. He had to pivot and help clients come up with ways to exercise at home, using whatever they had handy to work out. His online personal training programs are available through an app called Trainerize. Clients get personalized workout and nutrition coaching.
He's also still holding in-person, small group personal training for eight people, down from the 14 people he had pre-pandemic, so they can spread out. And there are, of course, private training sessions, too.
Melissa Anderson has been a client since 2007. The now 65-year-old Army veteran was looking for a fun way to get in shape and keep busy. Classes also helped her maintain emotional stability and lose the weight she put on a few years ago while going through a stressful time. And her doctor is a fan.
"I did a bone density test a year ago and my doctor said it's normal," says Anderson. "The doctor looked at me and said you don't understand — you're 64 and a petite, white woman. Very few have normal bone density. Working out has helped."
And forget about waiting to work out until you feel motivated or inspired. Ramirez is big on moving your body every day and turning it into a habit.
"It's motivating once they start to see progress and changes happening in their bodies," he says. "But they need to get outside their comfort zone. If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you. Just do two more or a few more seconds. Go up 5 pounds. And they realize they're getting so much stronger. And that in turn builds confidence."
Contact the writer: 636-0270
