ASAP Classic Podcast with the late Fitness and Training Pioneer Roger Schwab

ASAP Classic Podcast with the late Roger Schwab who passed this past March 2024. 

ROGER HAD BEEN A PIONEER IN WEIGHT TRAINING FOR DECADES. HE WAS COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S FIRST STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING COACH (PENN STATE 1964-1965) AND THE MAN WHO INTRODUCED THE NAUTILUS TRAINING AND EQUIPMENT SYSTEM TO PHILADELPHIA IN 1976. FROM 1976 TO 2015, HE WAS THE OWNER AND OPERATOR OF MAIN LINE HEALTH & FITNESS, RECOGNIZED BY MEN’S HEALTH AS THE FINEST WORKOUT IN THE UNITED STATES. ROGER WAS ALSO NAMED BY THE MAGAZINE AS ONE OF THE TOP PERSONAL TRAINERS IN THE U.S.

ROGER TRAINED BOTH THE U.S.A. WOMEN’S OLYMPIC SWIMMING AND FIELD HOCKEY TEAMS. HE ALSO TRAINED MIKE MENTZER FOR THE 1978 MR. UNIVERSE AND THE 1980 MR. OLYMPIA COMPETITIONS, AND SERVED AS HEAD JUDGE OF THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF BODYBUILDERS, PROFESSIONAL DIVISION, FROM 1978-1982.

A NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED LEADER IN THE PREVENTION AND REHABILITATION OF SPORTS RELATED INJURIES, ROGER HAS CONDUCTED IMPORTANT RESEARCH INTO THE PREVENTION AND REHABILITATION OF INJURIES OF THE SOFT TISSUES OF THE LUMBAR AND CERVICAL SPINE. HE IS ALSO THE AUTHOR OF OVER 100 ARTICLES IN NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS ON STRENGTH TRAINING AND BODYBUILDING, AND PUBLISHED THE ACCLAIMED BOOK, “STRENGTH OF A WOMAN,” IN 1997. HE WAS INDUCTED INTO THE PHILADELPHIA JEWISH SPORTS HALL OF FAME FOR EXCELLENCE IN SPORTS/MEDICINE IN 2008.

IN 2012, ROGER INTRODUCED X-FORCE “NEGATIVE ACCENTUATED” EXERCISE IN THE U.S. HE IS CURRENTLY THE OWNER-OPERATOR OF X-FORCE PHILADELPHIA, AND IS A LECTURER AND FEATURED SPEAKER ON THE BENEFITS OF “ECCENTRIC” TRAINING IN STIMULATING A SYSTEMIC PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECT.

In this episode of the ASAP Podcast, brought to you by SpecAthletic The Sports Flooring Professionals, Ed Cicale traveled to Philadelphia to visit the Mainline Health and Fitness Training Center in Byrn Mawr. Founded by the passionate strength trainer, Roger Schwab, Mainline Health and Fitness evolved from a small 1,200 square-foot facility to a whopping 35,000 square-foot behemoth. The conversation with Schwab uncovers the rich history behind the center's transformation and the unique approach towards strength training it offers.

Starting operations on Thanksgiving Day in 1976 as Mainline Nautilus, the gym was equipped with only nine machines. Inspired by his personal strength training journey, Schwab took the initiative to elevate his small fitness center. It wasn’t long before they expanded to include 120 Nautilus and Med-X machines, Nautilus medical testing machines, and a complete line of X-Force machines from Sweden, hailed by Roger Schwab for delivering the most effective workouts, brings a "wow" factor unseen in other fitness equipment due to its unique design for stimulating negative training.

Schwab elaborates on the benefits of X-Force machines, particularly for negative or eccentric training, citing how the technology has contributed significantly to the success of his fitness center over time. The remarkable physical transformations witnessed by clients, insists Schwab, are a testament to the efficacy of the X-Force equipment. This forward-thinking approach to fitness has not only garnered positive responses from patrons but has notably tripled business for Mainline Health and Fitness.

Wrapping up the episode, Cicale commends Schwab for his innovative and dedicated approach to fitness and strength training within the Mainline Health and Fitness Training Center. Tune in for an insightful look into one of the most incredible centers in the country and the inspiring story of its founder, Roger Schwab.

RIP Roger

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This ASAP podcast is brought to you by SpecAthletic, the sports flooring professionals
with Regapole technology.
So check out SpecAthletic.com, then give Kevin Cassidy a call.
He'll set you up and get your floor right.
This is Ed Sacali with Athletic Strength and Power Podcasts.

(00:20):
Today I find myself in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, basically Bryn Mawr.
I'm with Roger Schwab. He's owner and founder of Mainline Health and Fitness here.
He's going to tell us a little bit about his place. He's going to give us a
brief history. First of all, Roger, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me.
You know, I took the brief tour. I tinkered around with some of the pieces that you have.

(00:43):
It's a vast amount of equipment that you have here.
First of all, Roger, if you could just briefly explain the history of your Mainline
Health and Fitness Training Center. Okay.
Mainline Health and Fitness opened on Thanksgiving Day of 1976 as Mainline Nautilus.
We were a total of 1,200 square feet. I was the only employee.

(01:05):
I got involved in opening a Nautilus facility because of my passion for strength training. training.
I was 32 when I opened Mainline Nautilus, but I started strength training in
my late teens to try to get stronger for football.
I played high school football at 158 pounds, got hurt, got involved in weight

(01:28):
training, and I set several Pennsylvania state records in both Olympic lifting and powerlifting.
I went from Olympic lifting, so I went from the frying pan hand to the fire
and got involved in powerlifting.
Again, I was good at it. I sent Pennsylvania State Records in the bench press,
365, a two-second pause.

(01:50):
So I quite adept at powerlifting, but again, heavy single reps did damage to
my already damaged spine.
Anyway, so I got involved in Nautilus.
Because it seemed to make sense at the time. I visited Florida,
met Arthur, who later became my mentor for the next 30 years,

(02:10):
and Jim Flanagan, Ed Farnham, Kim Wood, and the guys down in Nautilus.
And it was just a great marriage.
And so we started with nine machines in 1976.
And today we are a much, much larger facility of about 35,000 square feet with
120 pieces of Nautilus and Med-X.
And in January of 2012, we added a complete line of X-Force machines from Sweden.

(02:37):
And since 1988, we've also had the Nautilus medical testing machines.
So I honestly believe that right now that we are the finest training facility on the planet Earth.
I know that it's an exaggeration to some, but I firmly believe it.
We're just doing great things in here, both in the fitness side,

(02:57):
in the athletic side, and especially in the sports medicine.
This is an amazing place, Roger. You've put together, as a visitor here,
you know, it's just incredible to see something like this.
You even have a book. You wrote a book, you said, back in 1997.
I wrote the book, Strength of a Woman, based on Nautilus' principles,
our philosophy of training women hard, as intense as we do men,

(03:21):
and for the most part, maybe even harder, since women seem to focus better on
the training, Twice a week, and our basic paradigm has been pre-exhaust training,
which we have always found to be the safest, most stimulating training,
according to Nautilus training principles.
Now, Roger, you're a big proponent of eccentric, or what we call in the regular

(03:44):
gyms, negative training.
Can you expand on that and why it's so important? Back in the early 1970s,
when I visited Florida and utilized all the new Omni machines,
I found myself getting my best workouts when I was in Florida training in a negative fashion.
So when we came back to Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr, we started doing negative work.

(04:09):
And the theory was right. We seemed to make our best gains with it,
but there were inherent problems with the negative training.
We had the entire line at the time of Nautilus Omni machines, but there was...
Inherent problems because even with the omni machines, especially the MOTI exerciser,
if you're doing negative chins and negative dips, there's lag time,

(04:33):
as Ellington Darden likes to say, and correctly.
You lowered yourself slowly, but by the time you got back up those steps,
it might be eight or ten seconds if you were working by yourself and you didn't
have somebody pushing you up by your glutes.
So you're instead doing a set of eight or ten reps, you're winding up doing
about ten sets of one rep.
And I didn't find it was safe, and you were recovering your strength from repetition

(04:58):
to repetition too much to fatigue the muscles as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
With X-Force, it's a whole brand new ballgame. You're controlling the positive,
and you're lowering the negative.
And all my years of training, these are the finest workouts that I've had.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to
ask you next about this exciting new line of equipment that you've added.

(05:18):
I'm not sure exactly what year you added it, but it's recent.
Recent and you just personally took me through
a training session wow is all i
can say it's pretty pretty amazing stuff that's
the response from most people it's a there's a
wow factor in x-force that you don't find and that i haven't found in any other

(05:39):
type of equipment you're in control of the positive and in your and the weight
stack the tilting weight stacks give you a 40 40% heavier resistance in the
eccentric part of the movement, but you're in control of the positive.
So it's not like somebody is handing you off the resistance and then you're
bracing yourself and lowering a heavy weight.

(06:00):
You're controlling the positive, which is always 29% lower than the negative.
And the negative is always 40% higher than the positive.
So you're in control of the positive rep. And then the weight stack straightens
up vertically and you lower down to five seconds or more on the negative movement.
Arthur explained years ago that

(06:20):
you're approximately 40% stronger on the lowering part of the movement.
Thus, with Nautilus and Med-X machines, we always lower the weight slowly to
take advantage of the negative work.
However, you can only lower what you could lift.
At least that was true before X-Force equipment came on the market.
Now, you're throwing around a lot of information about eccentric and the 40% and all of that.

(06:44):
Now, as far as your clients, a lot of them, they don't really understand that
or really may not want to, but the thing is, they keep coming back.
So there must be some results that people are experiencing using that equipment. You're right.
It's a little hard to believe. I mean, I've been training for such a long period of time.
We got the machines in January of 2012, and we don't have a DEXA scan here,

(07:07):
nor do we We have a water submersion. All we have is a little Tanita scale that measures impedance.
And we've always used, which measures body fat and body water and lean mass.
On January, when we got the equipment, I measured my body weight at 170 pounds.
I was 7.1% body fat. I'm pretty lean, but I've always had trouble adding muscle.

(07:30):
After we had the machines, and I train on the machines only once a week,
but they are very, very intense workouts. That's the hardest workouts I believe
in my life, and yet I'm 68 years old.
Today, I'm 175 pounds with the same 7.1% to 7.2% body fat according to the Tanita scale.
So when you look at me, you can see I've gained weight, and I look more muscular.

(07:52):
It's been a mind-blowing experience to me, but almost everybody that we've put
on these machines has not only felt results, but visually seen results.
We train very, very hard. We watch the amount of food. we put on our body.
We try to stay lean and muscular, and people seem to be stimulating better on
this equipment than we have seen in the past.

(08:14):
Ellington Darden is doing studies on it right now. He's a great one to talk
to about this, and he's writing a book on it, as a matter of fact.
And you're only going to see this X-Force equipment in your facility and the place down in Florida?
As of now, there's two facilities in the United States that have X-Force,
but But that certainly will change over time. They're very, very expensive.

(08:35):
And really, the way we do it is it's all by personal training.
The equipment has a lot of moving parts. We feel better and more in control
of the workout if we're in charge of it rather than letting people just get
on the equipment and use it themselves.
So, yes, they pay more for it, but we haven't had any complaints.
And quite frankly, it has almost tripled our personal training business since

(08:58):
we've got the equipment. Well, Roger, it's pleased that I made the trip over
to Bryn Mawr to check this mainline health and fitness center out.
It's a rare training center that you have put together here,
and we wish you continued success.
And thank you very much for letting us take a minute out of your day and check out the whole program.
Well, thank you, Ed, and you're always welcome here.