LYNN — Seven years ago, Lynn’s Andrew Rocco took stock in himself. He wasn’t happy with what he saw.
“I was 202 pounds,” said the diminutive Rocco, a sales manager for Atlantic Toyota on the Lynnway. “I couldn’t keep up with my kids at the beach, or anything like that. I kept thinking that my father died of kidney failure due to diabetes, and he was a big guy too.
“And I thought, ‘I can’t go down this road,'” he said.
Rocco was 47 years old at the time. So he set himself a goal.
“I told my wife that I wanted to be in the best shape of my life by the time I’m 50,” he said.
He achieved that goal quickly enough by paying more attention to what he ate, and working out. He started with free weights in his house, and graduated to the YMCA in Lynn, where he still works out six days a week.
“One day, I’m here (the Lynn Y) working out, and one of my friends said, ”Hey, you’re starting to look pretty good.’
And voila. Rocco’s quest to reinvent himself turned into an avocation: bodybuilding. He started out by entering the Monster Mash U.S. Championships in Worcester.
“This was the first time I came close to being on a bodybuilding stage. It was overwhelming,” he said.
He finished fourth. The next year, he went back to the same competition and won.
“It lit me up,” he said. “I got a posing coach and he helped me with the right poses. I went in there for the next competition confident I was going to win.”
He did. And he’s kept going. He’s competed in the International Bodybuilding Federation Championships in Los Angeles, and came in fourth there. And Saturday, he will be in New York, for the INBF World Championships in a meet involving 35 countries and 340 competitors.
Not only will Rocco compete in the masters’ category, he will also take part in the open too.
“I’m all in,” he said.
Rocco has a unique way of training, and in a lot of ways his methods defy conventional thinking.
“I start backwards,” he said. “I start with the heaviest weights, and work down if I have to. Most of the time, they tell you to start with the lighter weight and work up.
“It shocks the muscles,” he said.
Also, he maintains that the reason people don’t always like to lift is that they either don’t know the proper technique or they’ve been subject to a one-size-fits-all approach.
“When you do bodybuilding,” he said, “you learn a lot about how joints and muscles work.
“Different muscles require different attention. Also, people have to come up with the ways that work for them. Different approaches for different people. You have to figure out what works for you and stick to it. Just be consistent.”
Still, if you’re going to isolate your biceps, for example, you need to make sure that’s what you’re doing when you lift, he said.
“If you do it right, it feels great,” he said. “You’re stretching the muscles out, moving them, and that’s what feels good about it.”
Though strength training is Rocco’s thing, he does do cardiovascular exercise too — mostly swimming. He also works the elliptical machines and does a lot of walking.
“But a lot of my routines are strenuous enough, and involve enough movement so that they’re like cardio routines.”
Rocco would describe himself as uber-motivated, but admits there are days he has to drag himself to the gym.
“But you know what?” he asks. “Some of my best workouts come on days when I don’t want to be there.”
