Dominion Barbell Testimonials

Lindsay L.

I visited Manassas Ironworks, with some friends, for our Tuesday squat session. Our group had been squatting in a warehouse and had heard of a great new gym in Manassas, VA. Right away, I was impressed with the hardcore feel and equipment. The guys I had come to train with had been in the powerlifting scene for decades and continued to comment on the great quality of the equipment and the atmosphere of the gym. That night, with no coaching, I tied my previous PR with a 195# squat.

After the squat and deadlift session, Manassas Ironworks Head Trainer and Powerlifting coach, Josh Wehrmann, came over to give me a few pointers on my deadlift. He improved my form in only five minutes. After one hour of training with Josh, he changed my deadlift setup and form and completely reworked my squat form. I got a new PR squat of 200# during the first hour! After seeing results, I decided to leave the “chain gym” and join Manassas Ironworks.

Since then, I have been training with Josh three times a week. I am only in the second week of training but am already seeing (and feeling!) results. Josh is the only personal trainer who has ever checked in with me, on off days, to make sure that I’m feeling well and am doing proper exercises that will promote strength. Josh truly cares about those who want to train to succeed. His knowledge will help anyone be successful in powerlifting meets, bodybuilding competitions, or weight loss. His attitude and drive encourages me to train harder and be stronger.

Manassas Ironworks is not a “spa” type gym. It’s only for the hardcore, truly dedicated people. You need not join unless you have goals and want to work hard in order to achieve them. Josh has already become a friend and coach and I cannot wait to see where I can go from here! With his help, dedication, and support, the sky is the limit for anyone!
-Lindsay L. (Haymarket, VA – 30yrs. old)

Brad Sherman

My name is Bradley Sherman. I am 16 years old and I have been training with Josh three times per week for powerlifting. I’ll give you some idea where I was before I met Josh.  I used to go to Lifetime Fitness becaue I used to think gyms like that were good places to get strong. I had no idea what I was doing.  Looking back on it I must have looked pretty dumb thinking I was strong because I could bench 165 while listing to a Lady Gaga blasting on the clubs radio. I even remember a sign that was posted in the gym that laid out the weight room rules, which included no chalk, no dropping weights, and no yelling. Then I met Josh and my outlook on working out changed drastically. Working out no longer meant that I was going to go to a health spa and stare at chicks and try to look tough for people who had no reason to be in a gym. Working out became training.  Training became hard and intense and sometimes I didn’t think I was going to make it, but Josh has and will always push me farther than I ever expected I could go. The whole concept of the gym became new to me, and I mean a real gym not some neighborhood health spa where you can go buy a smoothie (or be given free pizza?!?!) and watch ESPN on a treadmill. No, I learned that a gym is a place where hard work and nothing less is expected from you. Only walk into a real gym if you really want to change yourself physically and mentally.

After a little less than a year I have gained 30 pounds of muscle, I can bench 226 pounds, I can dead-lift 407 pounds, and I am only just scratching the surface of my potential. People have noticed at my school (especially the girls) and my over all demeanor has changed. Let me tell you this,  if you’re not serious about reaching after goals don’t walk into this gym. Trust me Josh will get you fit but it’s not going to be a walk in the park, it will be tough, but in the end you will be happy you did it.  I promise you you’ll be a changed person. Josh is the only trainer I would ever recommend to anybody, anywhere.

Josh has trained me very hard and it has paid off. I recently entered and won my weight class (198lbs) in my first powerlifting competition – the 100% Raw Potomac Open, .   If it wasn’t for Josh I would have got my ass kicked, but after many months of hard work I was ready. I was a bit nervous going into the competition considering I had never done one before but I knew I would come through. The U.S. Navy Seals say you train like you fight, and I did.  Since I had trained hard I was not afraid of the weights and I destroyed them. I did so good that I qualified for the state championships. I feel on top of the world right now and feel like I can do anything.
-Brad Sherman (Centreville, VA – 16yrs. old)

Angela Leno

When I walked into Rage Fight and Fitness, now Manassas Ironworks, back in Feb 2010 for my first free trial session with Josh and I laid my eyes on this 6’6” mammoth of a man, the first words out of my mouth were “No offense guy, but I don’t want to look anything like you.” It was the beginning of what has become one of the of most productive relationships of my life.

As a mother of 3 with a military background, recovering from postpartum damage was a serious goal for me. At 37 I wanted to feel like I did when I was 22 again and I had really hit a rut with my workouts. I have been to all the fitness centers in this area – Gold’s Gym, Life Time Fitness, Sport & Health – just to name a few. All of these gyms have one thing in common..they are #&@$ing boring!! The same old routines, the same old cardio-machines, the same old wannabe weight lifters grunting and slamming their weights around, patting each other on the asses. It was no wonder I never felt like I really could get ahead doing the same thing day in and day out. I signed up for personal training at each of those gyms and although each of my trainers was very nice, they didn’t really get to know me and couldn’t really help me move forward. I was just another sale..a part of some goal they all needed to meet. They didn’t really care about my personal goals or helping me to achieve them. They used techniques they read in their text books and never really assessed what would work with my body. Needless to say, I never got past the initial sessions with many of them.

When I came to Josh two years ago, it was my last attempt at finding a trainer to help me get past my plateau. After my initial meeting with Josh, he took me back to the personal training room. He asked me questions about what I wanted to achieve and what kind of problems I was having. I came to Josh relatively fit-looking.. that is, I looked fit but really my endurance was poor and I had no stamina. Running and crunching had helped me get some tone and abs, but I was very weak on the inside. He listened to me explain what my fitness concerns were, that I wanted to feel fit, not just look it. He started me out on something called “super slow” sets. I didn’t get it at first. I did a set of six exercises working all my major muscle groups but each rep I did was agonizingly slow. By the end of my session I was completely exhausted and shaking all over. I was pretty much convinced from that first work-out session that I wanted to give this a shot. Two years later, I am still here. In the two years I’ve worked out with josh, my muscle mass, my tone and my endurance have increased more than I could have imagined. My abs are rock solid and, oddly enough, we very rarely do focused abdominal work-outs. My work-outs with Josh are intense and, more importantly, not boring! I never know what he is going to make me do when I get there. My performance anxiety is always high when I walk in. Sometimes I have to run around the building with the prowler..sometimes I have to do Tabatas on the row machine, sometimes I have to do burpees with the 50lb log, and sometimes I have to drag heavy ass tires with a harness or hammer on them with a sledge hammer and that is just the warm up.. My work-outs are almost always total body with a focus on lower or upper body depending on the day, and they always are focused on keeping my heart rate up. Working out with Josh these past two years has dramatically increased my fitness, my confidence, and really helped me to develop a relationship with a trainer that sincerely cares about what I am trying to achieve. After training with Josh, there is no way I could ever go back to a regular gym.

Angela Leno, Manassas, VA

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