Team
A good coach or trainer is knowledgeable, passionate, dedicated, inspiring, and committed to their own, well-rounded path. Get to know us by working out with us. Coaches lead Group Sessions, trainers provide Private and Semi-Private training. If you are interested in speaking to any of us about training options, contact Gymnasium.
Alex
Alex Amorosi is a registered and certified yoga teacher offering classes, workshops, and private instruction in the Greater Boston Area. In his private practice he has worked with yogis of all types from division 1 college athletic teams to teens to working professionals to seniors. He specializes in therapeutic yoga and working with yoga practitioners and newer yoga teachers to help refine their understanding of physical alignment and deepen their own yoga practice.
Alex studies many forms of yoga that inform his teaching including Iyengar, Forrest, Vinyasa Styles, Ashtanga, and Anusara. “I love every form of yoga I study”, he says. “I learn something new from every class I take and teach. I am constantly elated, and humbled, at how much there is to learn.”
Alex is available for private instruction and contributes to the workshop curriculum at Gymnasium. Learn more about Alex here.
Angel
Angel has always done things his way. Growing up in the Bronx, Angel “was the only kid who didn’t listen to rap.” Instead of street beats he turned to gymnastics, and competed throughout high school and college. After a degree in physical education he became a personal trainer and began bodybuilding. But by accident (fate?) he began to pick up a different kind of clientele: 60+ folks and people with a lot of weight to lose. These clients required a more functional, movement-based approach to suit their high-mileage bodies. With his own injuries from gymnastics and weightlifting mounting, he began to treat himself to his own medicine: and never looked back.
Angel also owned a publishing company that published poets and short story writers, met his wife while working at a casino, and is committed to animal welfare (his daily cool down is a walk with his adopted dog, Dora.) Angel is the kind of guy that the more you find out about him, the more surprises there are. Angel holds a certification from NASM, and in partner assisted stretching.
Angel is a Master Trainer and a Coach at Gymnasium.
Find Angel at Gymnasium Monday – Friday.
Anna
Anna Shum’s first love affair was with barbell squats, thanks to a front desk job at a gym during high school where she learned to lift free weights. According to Anna, this spurred an affinity for ‘picking up heavy stuff’. Which naturally led her to kettlebells. She initially liked their portability and workout efficiency, but over time kettlebells helped reshape the way she teaches and moves. She sees movement from a joint and structural integrity perspective rather than muscles in isolation. Anna defected to Gymnasium after years of training at big box gyms. She holds certifications from NASM-cpt, RKC, Z-health R-phase and CST. We’re so glad that she now happily calls our ‘little slice of G-love and community under CVS’ home. Anna is working her way towards a master’s degree in Health Communications while keeping it real at Gymnasium.
Anna is a Trainer and a Coach at Gymnasium.
Find Anna at Gymnasium Tuesday – Thursday.
Chris
Chris Lehmann is a practicing acupuncturist so he’s always thinking about how movement affects the body from an Eastern medicine and complete health perspective. He can tell you Yin and he can tell you Yang and we like that about Chris. His own path towards natural movement started as an athlete in high school and college (Lacrosse) where he realized that economy of movement was the key to the quickness and explosiveness that sports require.
Chris is intrigued by the natural strength of gymnasts, as demonstrated in movements like box jumps, single-leg squats, and pullups. He’s come to love the elegant simplicity of kettlebell and pairs the elasticity of bodyweight movements with plenty of swings, presses, deadlifts and getups. Reminds us of that old joke: A gymnast, an acupuncturist and an old time strongman walk into a bar…
Learn more about Chris’s acupuncture practice.
Chris is a Coach at Gymnasium.
Deanna
Deanna DAmore is a true hometown gal–born and raised in Newton! After ten years of competitive cheerleading, Deanna turned to weightlifting and treadmills to keep in shape, until her boredom turned her off. She discovered the paleo/primal lifestyle, which emphasizes eating and moving naturally, functionally and enjoyably. She left the conventional gym scene and started incorporating high intensity intervals and boxing training into her movement life.
When Deanna crossed paths with Gymnasium, she “finally found what I have been looking for!” Deanna is NASM certified in personal training, but she’s also a hair stylist and daycare provider. She’s definitely the person you want to have with you if you’re ever stranded on a desert island (with your kids) and want to look, feel, and move your best.
Deanna is a Coach at Gymnasium.
Find Deanna at Gymnasium on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.
Josh
Skinny-strong represent!
Josh speaks runner, cyclist, rower, lifter, kettlebeller, club swinger, martial artist, rock climbing, snowboarder, yogi, and hiker. It all started in high school where he ran cross country and track, but then lifted heavy with the footballers off-season. The blending of seeming opposites, of being a generalist rather than a specialist appealed to him, and led to a 16:00 5K and a 4:30 mile to boot. After his successful collegiate rowing career, triathlon training, and continued heavy lifting finally wore him out and left him injury hobbled, he shifted to a 12 year study of traditional and modern martial arts, yoga, tai chi, and varied movement traditions like kettlebell lifting and bodyweight training. He’s been cross-training long enough for everything to feel like nothing more than different forms of the same thing: movement. He wants people to be natural athletes who get better with age, who are ready for both the daily grind and the planned and unforeseen challenges of a long life.
Josh founded Gymnasium on the principle that the ultimate exercise is universally useful and mindful; that it should align with the movement paradigm; and that it should be fun, vital and shared, not a lonely, dreaded errand. Josh likes working with both individuals and groups and presenting to teams and companies. He can help you live and move to lose weight, gain lean strength, conditioning and skill, and is especially excited about inspiring folks to find and step closer toward their own definition of mastery, not just in exercise or athletics, but life. He paves his own master path with hard work, deep breathing, curiosity and laughter.
Josh is a Head Coach and Head Trainer at Gymnasium. And presses a mean Airdyne.
Find Josh at Gymnasium on Monday – Saturday.
Ken
A runner since 1975, Ken Schafer’s has been running since the first running boom. He’s had a storied fitness path and probably holds the Gymnasium record for number of certifications. He taught fitness in the US Army (yikes!) and racked up a slew of CrossFit certs (stripes!), but it’s through his discovery and continued study of the POSE Method under its inventor Dr. Romanov that his perspective of movement and fitness completely transformed. Ken especially likes to frame proper movement and training techniques in the context of evolution and physics.
Ken is a Level III POSE Method Coach and coaches the running Meetup at Gymnasium, where he can be found leading POSE-inspired runs on Tuesdays and Saturdays. If you are interested in learning POSE with Ken, contact us.
Three days a week you can also find him becoming something of a beast in the kettlebell sport lifts in which he’s training to compete.
Sandrine
Sandrine Shaefer is an award-winning artist, writer, curator, and educator. She has a unique perspective in movement as her body is integral to her work, which explores the connection between action and endurance (ask her about the tires—they were once part of a piece of work!). To learn more about her, her art, or any of the 300+ artists from around the globe she’s worked with, see her personal website www.SandrineSchaefer.com and the international art initiative she co-founded and directs: www.ThePresentTense.org.
Sandrine came to realize that many artists and writers spend so much time in their heads that they develop an unhealthy physical life. Many also become so removed they are downright hostile to the idea of exercise. She has a mission to change that. To not just help thinkers think differently about what exercise is and can be, but to find deep inspiration through movement. And for those for whom weight loss is part of their movement path, before finding Gymnasium Sandrine trained herself to lose and keep off 80 lbs! We are proud to be part of her next movement chapter.
Sandrine has a BFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University. She’s Adjunct Faculty at the Montserrat College of Art, and active artist in the US and abroad, and a Gymnasium Coach.
