Pittsford, N.Y. —
The Pit has moved.
Dan Fichter's Wanna Get Fast gym is now located in Pittsford at 3800 Monroe Ave., Building 27 Room L.
"We wanted to get closer to our
clientele," Fichter said. "We're bringing it out into the public scene.
Before we were kind of low-keyed. We spent a lot of time the first five
years with professional athletes.
"We didn't really get it out to the
general population, now we want the general public to see and become a
part of this as we've moved forward with college kids and high school
kids. We've really seen some great things happen and we're excited."
Fichter trained local NHL players Brian Gionta (Greece) and Rory Fitzpatrick (Irondequoit).
"We had a great offseason by Kevin
Montgomery in Erie in the AHL," said Fichter. "He was on the USA
Under-18 team. He now will play against Rory in the Rochester Americans
season opener Saturday night."
Fichter also is moving into training mixed martial arts players.
"It's one of the fastest growing
sports," he said of mixed martial arts, which is a combination of
wrestling, boxing, kick boxing, and jujitsu. "We think what we offer
for fighters is extraordinary in terms of strength and conditioning."
The most common mixed martial arts is the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which includes Donald Carlo-Clauss, a wrestler from Greece Olympia High School and the University of Virginia.
"I got into that a couple of years
ago, and I turned professional a little over a year ago" Carlo-Clauss
said. "I'm trying to make a career of it ever since."
When asked how this type of training
has been beneficial, he said, "It's been great for me because in my
sport I walk around at about 180 pounds and fight at around 155 pounds.
It doesn't do me a lot of good to bulk up and lift a lot of heavy
weights. Coming here has improved my flexibility and just my overall
strength and explosiveness.
"They're really focusing on athletic
movements in here. It's one thing to be able to benchpress a lot of
weight. It's another thing to be able to benchpress a lot of weight
very quickly, at a very rapid rate. I think it translates very well to
sports and athletics in general. No matter what sport you are in, here
people are becoming better athletes."
Carlo-Clauss competed in the Atlantic
Coast Conference tournament, and was a three-time ACC place finisher,
but never achieved his goal of All-American.
"I think that's partly why I'm still
competing now," said Carlo-Clauss. "I still have that fire and I still
want to succeed. Plus I got a taste of the working world. I'm currently
employed at PayChek in East Rochester. Any opportunity I have do to
something I really enjoy involved with athletics for a living, I'm
going to try and chase that and get whatever I can out of it, and do it
for as long as I can."
Carlo-Clauss knew Fichter before.
"Actually, Dan was my middle school
wrestling coach at the now defunct Hoover Drive Middle School," he
said. "I was on the last Hoover Hawks wrestling team when I was in
seventh grade, then they changed it over to Greece Odyssey.
"We had that one year together, then
we bumped into each other eight months ago at a jujitsu class in East
Rochester. I came in, checked out the gym and started working out with
him. I think it's worked out really well for both of us."
Another local athlete working out this day was Andy
Parrino. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound infielder is in the San Diego Padres
organization at Lake Elsinore Storm (High A) in California. The
Brockport native graduate from LeMoyne College. Parrino has been training with Fichter for three years.
"I'm getting older and I think I'm
able to recover faster than most of the guys my age (23)," he said. "My
goal every year is to stay healthy, and this training keeps me healthy
through out the year. We have a 140-game schedule. So far, knock on
wood, I haven't been hurt. The training keeps me explosive, flexible,
and ready for 140-game schedule, plus playoffs and championships,
hopefully."
But Fichter really has been amazed by the results young athletes have achieved.
"It's not sport specific, it's movement specific," he said. "When
you hit it like that, individually, the results are unbelievable. It's
awesome to watch the kids grow. I had a kid who started here when he
was 11 years old. He's in high school now. When he came in here his
vertical jump was 19 inches, now it's close to 30 inches. The
transformation that occurs with these kids is almost unbelievable if
you didn't see it happen.
"I tell them 'Don't tell them how much you put on your vertical
jump because nobody will believe you.' It's stuff like that that
happens every day that keeps me coming back in here. Two guys who are
working for me now have been through my program, and they've been
awesome with it."
Fichter
continued, "We have athletes who will call and stop in and take a look
at the style of training that we do. It's radically different than what
they may be accustomed to in any sports performance program. They see
if what they want matches with what we do. Once they do that, we set up
a movement and evaluation screening. We take a look at the way they
move, how they produce force and how they absorb force, then we create
a program based on their needs.
Fichter is proud of the accomplishments his high school trainees have attained.
"The most surprising part has been the high school kids," he said. "Just in this football
season alone, we had two kids make Player of the Week this week, Phil
Tokarz (McQuaid) and Travis Taylor (Elba/Byron-Bergon). When you read
in the paper about kids who come into your gym it's a great feeling.
"I coach at McQuaid, and we also have
kids from Aquinas who come here and other school districts. It's been a
great football season, to say the least."
The gym is open Monday-Friday from 2-7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday by appointment. To contact Fichter, go to www.wannagetfast.com, or call Fichter at (585) 749-8636
Craig Potter can be reached at (585) 586-4073, or e-mail: cpotter@messengerpostmedia.com