Santa Rosa trainer makes getting in shape fun

The first time you show up at Rich Anderson’s Fitworx in Santa Rosa, chances are he will greet you in person and ask you to hit the floor and do 100 ? push-ups. ? Think you can’t? Think again.

“People walk out saying, ‘I just did 100 push-ups!’” Anderson said, then paused to grin.

The 3,300-square-foot space on Maxwell Drive is part gym and part workout wonderland, a product of Anderson’s unique take on athletic training.

There’s a 1,200-pound tractor tire for clients to hit with 35- to 50-pound, custom-made sledgehammers. Devices suspended from the ceiling are designed for “American Ninja Warrior” enthusiasts who want to train like a ninja or compete in the NBC TV series. Punching bags also hang from the ceiling, along with 20-foot ropes and a cargo net for climbing

and gymnastic rings for pull-ups and leg raises.

Though Anderson doesn’t consider himself an artist, he definitely has a creative streak. Using scraps from the junkyard, he created a steel dinosaur on a bike that is suspended from the ceiling, a piece of art to complement the gym’s one-of-a-kind equipment. There’s a new device that looks something like a donut with handles, for example. Anderson refers to it as the “core buster.” His clients stretch out on the floor (push-up style), grip the handles and do 100 reps, shifting their weight back and forth.

“It’s my new toy to work on balance and strength,” he said.

Anderson has an athletic build that makes him look years younger than 53. He works out along with his members, describing himself as a “teammate,” not a personal trainer. On his own, he cycles about 185 miles a week. And though he’s an advocate for healthy eating, clients know that he sometimes wolfs down a Snickers candy bar for quick energy before a workout.

Inspirational messages are painted on the walls: “Make Your Life Happen,” “Lead by Example” and “Be More Than What You Think.” They represent the grit and confidence that evolved from Anderson’s intensely challenging childhood.

He was born in San Francisco in 1962 to a woman who was originally from France and who worked as a prostitute in the city. He was named after his father, Richard, the man listed on his birth certificate but whom Anderson has never met.

His mother placed him in an orphanage when he was three months old and visited him periodically during the early years, taking him on outside excursions. When authorities discovered she was having young Rich dance in bars for money during these excursions, the visits stopped.

He was 6 at the time and never saw his mother again.

Anderson remained in the orphanage until he was adopted at 8, but that placement didn’t work out. Three more adoptive families followed, each resulting in a new surname and dysfunction. He was beaten, molested, locked in cars and ignored and bounced from place to place. He lived in Napa, Santa Cruz, San Jose and Porterville, where his name became Rich Anderson.

He learned to cope with the dysfunction through sports at school, particularly track, but kept to himself.

“I was a loner,” Anderson said. “I didn’t trust people.”

Defining moment

He became the target of bullies. At a track meet in sixth grade, while running the 660 (a lap-and-a-half around the track), one of those bullies ran out on the track and kicked him in the seat of the pants. “He kept chasing and kicking me saying, ‘You can’t quit this race. You’re going to win,’” recalled Anderson. “I’ll never forget it.”

It was a defining moment. He won the match and emerged with the determination to always do his best.

Anderson got a part-time job and ran away from his final adoptive family at 14, moving into a room offered to him by his employer.

Although just an average student, he continued running track in high school and was noticed by a coach at College of the Siskiyous in Weed, Calif., earning a place on the track team, financial assistance and the possibility of graduating early from high school.

He seized the opportunity, earned his two-year degree and joined the Army. There his passion for fitness took on new meaning.

“In the military, I realized I was faster, stronger and had more willpower,” he said. “I knew I had something, and that gave me confidence.”

Anderson served for 12 years, living in places such as Missouri and Kentucky and on bases throughout California. When he was discharged, he focused his experience on helping people who wanted to help themselves.

“I could have the best self-pity story in the world, but it is possible to rise above it,” he said. “There are no excuses. You can do whatever put your mind to.”

Anderson moved to Santa Rosa and worked part-time jobs at Costco and various gyms, although he wasn’t a fan of gyms. Instead, he has adapted his own program by combining his combat training with intense speed, power, agility and core drills.

“When you’re confined to a room, you can’t run climb and crawl. You never achieve true fitness,” he explained. Anderson wanted to do something different, so he bought a pickup truck and decked it out with a bench press, pulley machines, weights, cargo nets and boxing gloves. For five years he drove that mobile gym to private homes and schools, once bringing his gym on wheels to Sonoma State University, where he led a workout with 73 players on the school’s baseball team.

Hired as trainer

One day Anderson got a call from Joel Holland, then the director of athletics at Sonoma Academy, a private co-ed college prep high school in Santa Rosa. Holland was interested in hiring him to help students get fit. Anderson drove his truck to the school, did a workout with Holland and afterward, remembers Holland saying, “I’m hooked.” He was hired as the school’s speed and agility trainer and eventually taught physical education classes, too.

Four years later, Anderson left to open Fitworx and has been working alongside his clientele there for the past eight years.

What inspired this different approach to working out?

“Functional fitness,” he said. “Your body is a human machine. Using your body in a functional way will give you the athletic look if that’s what you’re trying to achieve.”

Case in point: Anderson explains that while “six-pack abs” may be the aesthetic goal, “core muscle integrity” is the ultimate goal, the real source of power and strength. A poster at his gym reads, “Without core integrity, your body would have the stability of a wet noodle.”

As for those six-pack abs? “The abdominal muscle is like a girdle meant to hold in your organs,” he said. “Your real strength comes from the Quadratus lumborum (a lower back muscle), and the psoas major (a long muscle located on the side of the lumbar region of the vertebral column) and many more muscles.”

Each piece of equipment is designed to work the body in a functional way, using an approach that is challenging as well as fun and unorthodox.

There are steel “power sleds” that clients take outside they gym, pushing and pulling them for a mile and a half. The sleds help them build speed, power and confidence.

The “human ladder” also is an outdoor device that teaches teamwork, builds mental tolerance and power while strengthening arms, shoulders, core and legs. Two clients carry the ladder as they walk the streets outside the gym. A third hangs from it while doing pull ups or stretches across the top to do push-ups. Periodically they rotate to new positions.

Inside, there’s a “man mill,” a treadmill with rollers taken from a UPS box conveyor belt. Clients stretch out push-up style, grip the handles and do “mountain climbers” with their legs, which works the core.

No monthly fees

Fitworx operates differently than most gyms. There are no monthly membership fees; clients pay as they come. The gym is open only for Anderson’s workout sessions, and his clients are varied. Among them are physicians and nurses, attorneys, law enforcement officers and contractors.

His youngest was an 8-year-old boy who wanted to wrestle in competitions; Anderson helped him with strength and conditioning. Later, the young man was admitted to West Point Military Academy on a wrestling scholarship.

The oldest was a 97-year-old man who came with his son and did 10 pull-ups while he was there.

What is it about Fitworx that draws his clients?

“I like his ‘take-no-prisoners’ approach to training,” said Dr. Stanley Jacobs, a North Bay facial plastic surgeon with offices in San Francisco and Healdsburg who has been working out with Anderson for about three years.

“In life you need to be mentally fit as well as physically fit. They are inextricably woven together, one helping the other. Rich works your whole body in a rotational, practical, non-linear way that lends itself to all forms of physical activity.”

Jacobs credits his workouts with Anderson for making him stronger and faster at activities such as mountain biking and hiking, and giving him the stamina to perform surgery for hours at a time during his work day. What’s more, he likes the fact that Anderson works out along with him.

“I cannot work out with a trainer who does not work out with me,” said Jacobs. “Rich leads by example. I respect that.”

As for Anderson, he is content with helping his clients understand their bodies and build confidence as they achieve the best results possible.

“The first step to fitness is to find out how out of shape you are,” he said. “I tell people the truth. I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to hear.

“I also have high expectations of people. I’m here to raise the bar, and I want to be part of the journey.”