IFBB Pro Rosario Romero: A Journey to the Top of Bodybuilding

foreign [Music] [Music] all right yes I'll just stretch and move around a little bit um so I didn't used to stretch thank you very much so I got older yeah and then I started getting injuries and stuff and then my massage therapists are like well you need to take the time to stretch yeah same with me like in my 20s I would just jump into weights right away and even heavier weight like I wouldn't build my way up as much yeah but yeah I started feeling it in my 30s oh yeah that changed but yeah and I go back into my therapy and they're like why did you stretch yeah yeah for five minutes yeah I don't think it was even five minutes right right everybody hates stretching all right so I do know you a lot already but it's amazing stuff honestly that's true are you from El Paso I am I was born in El Paso um and I was raised in violence actually so I went to school and wanted us all my life my family's still over there well my brother lives here but my parents live over there so was your family super into fitness not at all yeah not even a little bit yeah I feel bad not even a little bit so about how old you got into like weightlifting well how old were you when you um well I started doing somewhat of weight training when I was in high school but very informal and without guidance so um then I kind of tapped into that every now and then to keep active once I moved to El Paso and was here for a while I started doing CrossFit after I had my son actually yeah so I started doing CrossFit I did that for four and a half years how'd you like it I'm very competitive so I liked it quite a bit Yeah except uh lots of injuries lots of injuries um I'm sure the CrossFit people are gonna love me saying all this stuff um so you know I got a little bit wiser that kind of way I stopped doing CrossFit and then that's when I went back into regular lift tea and cardios so strength and conditioning at that time that was like 2015. yeah yeah at the beginning of 2015 something like that so not so long ago when I actually got more serious about bodybuilding yeah when I started doing it it was just to stay healthy lose weight um get stronger all that stuff so I started training with a trainer here in El Paso very very good trainer and then there was a couple girls that were actually competing so I would just look at them and be like want to look like that yeah um I've always loved muscle so that's when I decided to well my coach at that time actually convinced me to compete yeah but it was very interesting because I was a party animal so I would be out and about from Wednesday through like Sunday yeah so when I decided to do it he's like okay but you have to stop going out you have to stop drinking and you're like wait what like totally do this he's like you have a discipline you come here even when you know you've been out but uh that's when I decided to do it once like I'll do it once to say I did it um and then go back to my normal life yeah yeah and then you like fell in love with it yes yeah it I I got addicted I I love it so so so much yeah um so my first competition was 2016. how did you play so that one I won oh Dean in your first show so yes oh wow okay I did um so that qualified me for Nationals okay so I did a show in Dallas actually and then I did another show in El Paso okay so that was a lot of fun and actually so actually I did bikini and figure both okay so and did you place in both of those I placed them both of them okay I placed better in figure okay um I Bikini's not for me never has been yeah I figure that's only to compete in bikini and I don't want to if anything I would try for figure but I'm not big enough for figured yet it's I don't know it's not for everybody yeah I respect it a lot I like it it's just not for me um and I love muscle so all I want you to do is grow yeah and grow and so now which category do you usually compete in so I've been competing in figure I'm gonna go down because I'm a little weak okay I asked you and you're like this is great I was like I can do this look at my muscles under this sweatshirt you're like look I look I look like I'm lean in this okay all right you are you're always lazy um so so figure yeah figure now too so after that I competed in figure kept at it I ended up getting my Pro card and figure in 2019 actually oh that was around the time I met you huh yes yes you know I remember I was in the gym I remember the day I first saw you in person because I followed you on Instagram and I saw this girl walk across the gym and I'm like dang when I saw your body and I'm like oh man and then you turn around I'm like oh that's the girl from my Instagram yeah that's me I remember that were you training people did you actually pay people I was not at the time oh okay um very very recently I have started doing online coaching and training just tapping into it honestly I don't have the time to go full blown on the training um I have my full-time job I am a single mom yeah my son's 13 so there's lots of activities you know football basketball plus my training and obviously my full-time cow yeah so yeah so I carve out time to train to for me you know for my training and my meal prepping and all that stuff I'm glad you mentioned that though because a lot of people will just be like I don't have time because I have a kid yeah because I have a job and you're like I have all of it right yeah yeah so it's you know it's it's hard I do take on some online clients but it has to be I pick and choose quite honestly um right now I have two online clients one of them she's only doing the training part and then the other one's only doing the nutrition part now I've done um one girl that was both training and nutrition and she competed last year in wellness and bikini so how'd she do oh I'm sorry Wallace and figure yeah yeah she did really well she did really really well and then what about your online training what's your platform do you use like one of those apps or do you just through email it's through email honestly email on Instagram what's up okay it's mainly through that and that's how we communicate I send the program I send the diet and I get chickens and all that it's fairly simple because I don't have that many clients yeah and honestly it's it's one of those things it's like if I have the time I'll take on more if not I can't yeah so it's not my main focus but but I like it I love helping people and yeah I enjoyed it quite a bit that's awesome I remember you were super responsive one time when I asked you for a shoulder workout I was just like what do you do for shoulders and it's like bang bang okay I like all that yeah you're tagging me in videos and stuff I'm like all right for two weeks one day no it's yeah I try I try and help people out I remember when I started and I had a really good trainer a really good coach so that I was lucky enough to hire somebody but a lot of people you know or you know once you get out of that you don't people don't know how to do things or form is different or you don't know how how to focus on certain things or which exercises to do and it all has the science behind it it really does yeah I do see a lot of people if they don't know how to use the equipment just do random stuff I don't think some of them realize like you're going to give yourself an imbalance yeah you're gonna get easier and they don't know it they don't know it yeah they don't know it or they always do like for example shoulders they do what they see people doing but they don't know that there's three heads in the shoulder you know and yeah and the ideal thing is to work each one of them and do a few exercises of each just to have a full rounded a workout so nice just little things like that did you want to go to different equipment we can move oh someone will make fun of me over there yeah um what size weights do you want let's try so I can cut it in half for myself I'm feeling pretty buff today let me go get my straps real quick I don't actually know if I can do 45 still before she gets back before I embarrass myself oh my God this is our warm-up weight you know okay sounds like probably my Max are you doing 10 again yes yeah I am stretching holding really slow so my bag's always been my main focus for growth yeah it's because of my category and because it's my stubborn part yeah you know it took me it took me a good I would say probably two years to get a nice back where I wanted it because I was very slender all around so I didn't have like shoulders in the back even now I feel like my back I mean the back of my um shoulders aren't as developed as I want them to be let's see what this feels like see it's fun yeah I'm okay tell a joke Italian so as far as upcoming shows or anything that you have coming up like is there anything going on there there's yes so there's a lot going on because I had to take I think we talked about this a little bit earlier um I had to take a little break yeah so I've been competing consistently for seven years in a row so between you know doing shows back to back three shows at a time yeah and The Chronic dieting and then of course the you know training and cardio yeah so they're over trading let's put it that way yeah um the body takes a little bit of a toe so and I always do blood work before prep right after I do see you posting myself yeah it's it's it's more important people think especially when you do this um because you might feel fine but then the parameters look something different so then there's stuff that you need to level out yeah or you need to take a break um and as bodybuilders and competitors are not very good at taking breaks I hate it we hate it we get used to looking lean and mean and conditioned and defined and uh we take our bodies through extreme so we forget that we need a break too and I did you know yes I took my off seasons and stuff but not long enough I think and I was still doing a bunch of cardio and off season and stuff yeah so I had to take a break so I took a break for about a year and a half it's going to be a year and a half here coming up soon okay to where we wanted to fix my gut so I went into a gut prodigal uh with my coach and we fixed that leveled up my hormones um dropped my cortisol was pretty high which is the stress indicator and stress just made me stress could be from you know dieting cardio exercise life yeah anything work so finally my blood work came back pretty good and we decided to go into prep so I just started prepping a couple weeks ago two to three weeks ago and uh I'm very excited because it's yeah it's awesome it's time it's time to get back to it and I of course miss looking you know leaner yeah um I miss all of it believe it or not even the dieting and all that fun stuff so it'll be a lot of fun I don't know what show exactly I'm gonna do yet um but my coach and I want to do both for your end actually physique maybe this time around which is a big surprise because I've never done that you've never done physical you never have never identity so and did he say like goal wise what you need to work on to get to that other level so we're definitely working like I was telling you earlier on my back because I need to grow my back and that's with and depth both um it always seems we have to work on something you know as bodybuilders to get better especially I mean at the pro level it's so much more competitive it's crazy so there's always something that you could be better it feels like with some of the pros I follow it's like they fix one thing and then the dead people like well this is messed up and they figure yeah it's like never ending fixing stuff yeah so it's yeah so it'll be so there's a lot of work to do obviously but I'm looking forward and so far it's going good I've already you know dropped a few pounds and it's like a slow consistent move I'm doing things a little bit different I have a new coach so we're working a little bit different this time around um I'm thinking by may I should be pretty much ready and then we'll pick the shows that I'm doing depending on what my body's doing and all that stuff but it's exciting awesome I'm very excited can't wait I'm curious and maybe people who are interested in becoming bodybuilders or competing are too I've been told several times to compete and I just refuse right like I feel like my self-esteem can't take the Judgment but out of curiosity when you do get judged and let's say you don't place in the show or something like that do you take it personally do you does it mess with your mental health at all because that's what I would be worried about for myself honestly um it could so when I started this journey yes it would so I think it all takes time so it's a process even for that yeah to be able to take feedback and criticism in the right Spotlight um in the beginning it's hard because you take it too personal sometimes you kind of want to cry I remember crying I feel like I would cry myself to sleep every night yeah I remember crying a lot yeah and then every show you get better at things yeah and getting better also means learning how to understand feedback criticism knowing that you still have a lot of work to do even now I mean we're talking seven years later and my feedback sometimes like you know like well I kind of suck you're okay I got it I'll go fix that oh my God but no it's just you gotta learn how to take that and honestly all they're doing is just pointing you in the right direction yeah and letting you know what needs to be worked on what but they'll also tell you you know your glutes look perfect yeah um your shoulder caps are perfect yeah just you don't maintain that and work on this so my feedback has consistently been in my back but it's something that I already know so so but it's it takes a little bit of time to know how to take the feedback but then if you take it in the right light then you really then you know where to work okay so it's important yeah a lot of competitors don't realize how important it is to get feedback just wave really I'm going to show even though it sucks talk to the judges because that's when they remember things yeah not 10 days later when you can kind of approach them afterwards and they're okay with that oh they're perfectly okay with that they are written feedback too they do afterwards so it will be spoken at the end of the show but then if you take the time to email them your pictures that you get on the website and uh ask them then they'll email you back to feedback as well okay but you know you just have to take the time and wait it out and if it's that important to you you're going to wait and get the feedback even if it's at one in the morning when the show ends I would already be on the plane crying you're like but why I don't have time for this where's my meal and my plane ticket I know it's you know yeah but you gotta love it I think yeah we're done with this one yeah we can move on we um let's see see what we can find over here so the power lifters plates and everything okay yeah oh because they can like what even is that like a stretching kind of machine oh it'll help you stretch let's skip that one yeah I really don't like it but yeah like I've never even seen that before so is it like a big Power so the power lifters will hang out here they have like little tournaments oh cool so this is like my favorite press machine yeah and then that like I've I've seen machines I've never seen in my whole life so this one I think Mary actually defined it really yeah so you can do several things with this the way I usually use it um I've seen people use it for Rose I use it for hamstring okay so but I'm short so I usually have to put like the blocks to get on top yeah I'm little get your Legos let me get my Lego nope you don't need help why am I lying to myself I'm like I need my I need my Legos you know this are those super heavy yeah okay I'm like yeah it's heavy so this do you think she has this like patented if she designed I don't know if she I mean that's awesome she probably did but I know she just signed it um so it's yeah it's just one of those yeah she's uh yeah she loves this stuff let's see I haven't used it in a long time so it just depends there's so many uses to it mm-hmm it looks cool it's a deadlift too yeah I use it for this a lot but I've seen people use it for rows and for overhead press so have you ever been a judge of a show yourself I have not um if you start being a judge are you still allowed to compete how does that work um yes yes obviously obviously not at the same show but yeah you could still be a judge and compete I've I've tapped with the idea I've thought about it yeah um quite a bit Yeah but we'll see because you also you know you would have to travel to different shows in Texas and stuff yeah so does your son go with you when you go to the shows sometimes so actually last year he went to one of my shows in Tampa and it was a I love having him there it's so much more motivation for me yeah a thousand percent and does he like it he only likes watching me compete yeah once that's over he wants to get out of the audience so he's not completely into it yet I'm hoping eventually he will be the who knows yeah um but he was actually there when I got my Pro card oh no so yeah that was in New Jersey yeah that was amazing I'll go see them about oh my let's see that was 2019. so he was nine oh okay he was about nine that's cool or to be ten you see that yeah so yeah I still have you know the videos he was recording me from the audience and and there was a few of my friends there too and they were recording and you could hear my son yeah so that was like the best thing so how heavy was that it was a good warm-up I can probably put a little bit of weight all right no we'll go 25 is that 25 is that a good try I will find out soon enough oh come on I've seen your train and then like for these sometimes usually I try and wear my belt even when it's not like crazy heavy but do you have any specific injuries that you have to kind of work through on the regular oh yeah I have so many injuries especially from Crossfit um I have a pretty bad shoulder injury yeah that I work around I still do everything it just hurts and I just work through the pain sometimes um sometimes it's not too bad but I do get so I do massages and physical therapy once a week if not twice yeah so I have a couple of sponsors for that and my chiropractor also okay um because I have that and then my left knee flows up every now and then I've just recently like been dealing with uh recurring hip injury so like I've had to tweak everything I do yeah you just kind of work around it right yeah so do you have any specific advice that you would give someone who's serious about getting into bodybuilding um yes I have a lot of advice but the most important one is consistency and it sounds cliche it really does but it's kind of what I was telling you so if you yes you're going to be bummed out because you didn't place yes you're gonna be a little hurt because I told you that you need to grow or that you need to work on your posting and you're gonna cry a little bit but you need to stick with it so to me consistency is the most important thing because I'm not always motivated there's days I don't want to come to the gym yeah there's days when I don't want to eat chicken and rice but you just do it so yeah you work it into a habit and you stay with it and you're not going to see results right away but eventually it'll come if you stay with it yeah so that's that's the big one for me the consistency and then the other thing is hire a coach because a lot of people want to do this on their own and I'm not saying that nobody's capable of it but quite honestly to be competitive you have to have an outsider perspective you have to have somebody that shows you and tells you and looks at you and it's more unbiased let's put it a certain way because sometimes we're way too critical with ourselves I know I am yeah I know I don't think I'm ready even the week before him competing and then I go and look back and I'm like oh my goodness I was totally ready yeah but if I didn't have a coach telling me you're there then maybe I would have dropped out of the show yeah so that's important um so hire a coach for sure and the other thing is just State discipline it's it's hard but it's so easy to just go off track yeah and be like it's just you know one meal it's just one beer it's just and it's hard it's hard for everybody we all cheat we all eat something we're not supposed to and anybody that tells you that they haven't they're completely lying yeah so we're not perfect um we're human beings and we're we're tempted and I just ate like half a carton of cookies yesterday because one of the clients had a cookie setup for us so it's yeah you know we're human and we're gonna mess up and the important is to just let it go put it in the past and then start over um a lot of people just get discouraged from the get-go yeah and then that's a big one um it's maybe that just focus on doing things right because I see a lot of people in the gym just working through the motions and not paying attention to form um sometimes I just want to look like they lift super heavy oh yeah and their form is garbage yeah and you know it's kind of sad because you see that people are like oh you would do you will look so much better like you would progress if only it would just drop half that weight yeah and focus on form and just connect with your body and no those are the big ones I guess yeah well thank you and have fun with it yeah yeah that's good that's good all right well thank you for having this interview with me so we could learn a bit more about you it's good to see you it's been a long time thank you I appreciate it look at you all right foreign

Channel: Body Movement Ink Mag

Views: 32,123

Keywords: IFBB Pro Bodybuilder, Rosario Romero Interview, Bodybuilding Journey, Bodybuilding Motivation, Fitness Goals, Fit Life, Healthy Living, Gym Life, Workout Motivation, Muscle Building, Bodybuilding Tips, Bodybuilding Advice, Fit Fam, Gym Inspiration, Healthy Lifestyle, Body Movement Ink, Online Training, Weight Training, Fitness Inspiration

Id: Rpj84EbgnA4

Length: 27min 28sec (1648 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023