Ruberto - Deezifys Epic Workout Handbook: An Illustrated Guide to Getting Swole

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This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is intended to provide helpful and informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. It is sold with the understanding that the author and publisher are not engaged in rendering medical, health, or any other kind of personal professional services in the book. The reader should consult his or her medical, health, or other competent professional before adopting any of the suggestions in this book or drawing inferences from it.

The author and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, that is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

Copyright 2020 by Filippo Ruberto

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First Tiller Press trade paperback edition May 2021

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Interior design by Matt Ryan

Cover art by Fil Ruberto

Cover design by Patrick Sullivan

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ruberto, Fil, author.

Title: Deezifys epic workout handbook : an illustrated guide to getting swole / Fil Ruberto.

Description: New York : Tiller Press, [2021]

Identifiers: LCCN 2020000952 (print) | LCCN 2020000953 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982137410 (paperback) | ISBN 9781982137427 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Exercise. | Physical fitness.

Classification: LCC GV481 .R83 2021 (print) | LCC GV481 (ebook) | DDC 613.7dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000952

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000953

ISBN 978-1-9821-3741-0

ISBN 978-1-9821-3742-7 (ebook)

M y name is Fil Ruberto, but tens of thousands of people online know me as Deezify. What does Deezify mean? Well, it started with the young bros. While I was working out at the gym, they would see me and ask, Bro, how can I get deezed like you? In case youre unfamiliar (although I cant imagine you are since youre reading this book), deezed refers to diesel, which is slang for big or strongmuch like swole, yoked, jacked, and pumped.

I have twenty years of natural bodybuilding experience and have been a CANFITPRO Personal Training Specialist, a Fitness Instructor Specialist, and a kettlebell instructor, as well as being certified in ViPR, BOSU, and SMRT (Self-Myofascial Release Technique, also known as foam rolling), but you may be surprised to learn that I havent always been 240 pounds of muscle. As a kid, I was actually quiet, skinny, and shy, an honor student who liked to draw. At school, you could often catch me outside drawing in my sketchbook while I waited for class to start.

When I graduated from high school in 1993, I won the schools art award and headed to university to pursue a degree in architectural science. Early on in my freshman year, one of my friends started weight lifting. He totally transformed himself, and when I saw his results, I thought, I can do this. As someone who grew up being a big comic book fan, who learned to draw by mimicking my favorite artists, I decided to apply that same strategy to working out. Ive always been motivated and inspired to do things in that way.

My fitness journey began in my garage with some rusty old weights, and the more I worked out with them, the more my passion for fitness grew. For the thesis I had to do in order to complete my architectural-science degree, I even designed a fitness center. Needless to say, working out had become a big part of my life.

After graduating from university, I worked in the architecture industry for several years, mainly writing health and safety reports for hundreds of commercial buildings, but I eventually began to feel creatively unfulfilled. As a means of addressing this, I taught myself web and graphic design. At the same time, I continued to pursue my passion for fitness. When I turned thirty-five, I had accumulated sixteen years of training myself in the gym, more than ten thousand hours of workouts, and endless hours studying fitness. Training, lifting, working outwhatever you want to call itstarted as my hobby. But my hobby then became my habit. Some may even say it became my religion.

I caught the fitness bug young because it physically transformed me and helped me with confidence, so when an opportunity arose to become a certified personal trainer, I seized it, with the goal of being able to use my experience to help others reach their fitness goals. Every personal trainer brings their own past experiences to their training style, and as a former fitness outsider who spent years working in a different industry, I vowed to train people from all walks of life, keep pretentious fitness terminology to a minimum, and always tell my clients the truth. I wanted to be an empathetic and fun trainer, but also stern, like the big brother I am. In other words, there would be no BS in my trainingonly the promise of hard work ahead.

The idea of workout illustrations came to me when I was planning my first fitness class. I called it the Gladiator Club. While teaching this class, I wanted to stand out from the other instructors, who would simply go through the motions, so I got the idea to run a circuit in order to accommodate the number of people who had signed up for my class. There was one big issue I observed while running the circuits, however: People would not stop asking the question What is this exercise again? as they moved to the next station.

I had to come up with a solution, so I decided to sketch out a couple of the exercises to identify them for my clients. I made all the figures in the illustrations gladiators as a nod to the name of the class, and I pinned the drawings on the walls of the studio. This way, every exercise station would be clearly labeled, and class attendees would no longer need to ask what the exercise was.

I could just focus on helping people with their form and offering other guidance. It wasnt long before the class became a hit (with both women and men). After it took off, I started providing clients who were new to lifting with additional sketches that walked them through particular exercises, and I even began designing entirely illustrated exercise programs for a handful of more-experienced clients, so that they could use them when working out on their own.

After training clients for several years, it was time to level up and set another goal, and that goal was to reach more people. As a trainer who had to be in the gym all day, be accessible for walk-ins, abide by gym rules, and work with only gym patrons, I was starting to feel restricted. I liked training people, but I felt like I wasnt reaching everyone I could be reaching, and I also really wanted to focus more on my art. So when I turned forty years old, I decided to make a change. I left the personal-training job and committed to using my technical and creative experience to create something of fitness value that was also motivational. I thought,