Eye on Small Business: Emil and Dante Paolucci’s Freedom Gym 22, Larchmont

The term “fitness instructor” doesn’t quite do Emil Paoloucci justice. A resourceful man who has put his military background to practical use in creating a business after his service, Emil might also be called a drill master, life coach and motivator. He is also the financial backer of son Dante’s gym, Freedom Gym 22  in Larchmont.

He described Freedom 22 as “a mom and pop gym” that started during Covid. “I wasn’t going to let Covid beat me,” Emil said. He opened the gym with Dante so that the two of them could have a place to train.

Emil grew up in New Rochelle and graduated high school in 1987. He played baseball at Pelham High School, joined the military and winded up serving his country in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. But after the Persian Gulf War (1990-91), he said he was “a lost puppy.”

“I was suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), drinking every day, and would sit out on my deck with the wrong people.” Then, in 1999, his son Dante was born and that “punched me in the face. I got myself sobered up and it completely changed my life. He’s my hero. Without him I’d be dead.”

When Emil realized “fitness” was what he wanted to do for a living, he used his military background to start a boot camp. Without recourse to modern media methods, he found his first customers ­the old-fashioned way, namely by pounding the streets – going to every police and fire station in New Rochelle and signing up gym enthusiasts among them. Eventually, “civilians” – that’s to say regular members of the public – followed. “And they didn’t just want to get ‘big,’” Emil said. “They wanted to get ‘big’ like a United States marine.”

His clients run the gamut from the 16-year-old New Rochelle High School baseball players he trains to 80 year olds he coaches in his Zoom classes.

Freedom 22 also offers extreme training programs, delivered through a variety of boot camps. The outdoor boot camp, which has both six- and 12-week session, aims to get customers physically and mentally fit. The tactical boot camp requires men to wear a 30-pound vest aand teaches hand-to-hand combat drills.

The gym offers diet plans, although oddly Emil is not a fan. Indeed, on the subject of diet he is plain-spoken: “I don’t believe in diets and diet plans.” If anything, he is an advocate of the famous four-word diet, on which he has put his own twist: “Eat less, train more.” If that needs qualifying, he added, “Eat what you want to eat, when you want to eat it – but in moderation. He disses fancy diet plans that he said can cost up to $400, or $500, saying he doesn’t believe in selling people something they’re not going to stick to. (Emil is a vegetarian “after being in a war and seeing the things that I’ve seen,” he said.)

As for the gym, let’s say it’s no place for sissies. Like his military-minded, doting dad, Dante is uncompromising in his attitude to fitness. “We don’t care about feelings or excuses,” reads the pair’s mission statement. “We don’t train athletes. We build warriors.” don’t