Before his election as Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost lived in a modest apartment near St. Peter’s Square, walked regularly through Rome’s Borgo neighborhood, and worked out at a local gym just a few blocks from the Vatican.
To the staff and trainers at Omega Fitness Club, he was just “Robert,” a quiet, polite man who came in dressed in a tracksuit and kept to his routine.
Then came May 8.
White smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel, and the man they knew as a calm regular on the stationary bike stepped out onto the balcony as the new pope.
“I thought to myself, ‘I train this person!’” said Valerio Masella, the 26-year-old personal trainer who had worked with Prevost for nearly two years.
“Basically, I trained the future pontiff: it’s incredible, but for me, he was a client like any other, and he behaved like all the clients of this gym.”
At first, Masella hadn’t thought much of him.
“I asked him what he did for a living, and he simply said, ‘I’m pretty busy.’ I thought he was a professor,” he said. “He came in informal clothes. However, he was always kind, never nervous or irritated. A truly serene and balanced person.”
El Omega Fitness Club, a pocos pasos de la Plaza de San Pedro, se ha convertido en el gimnasio más famoso de Roma. Aquí solía entrenarse León XIV antes de ser elegido Papa. ¡Todavía es socio!@aciprensa @EWTNNoticias pic.twitter.com/9jT9dzWlMS
— Victoria Cardiel (@VictoriaCardiel) May 15, 2025
What the New Pope’s Workout Looks Like
According to Masella, Pope Leo trained two or three times a week, usually for 45 minutes per session.
He would start with a 10-minute warm-up on the exercise bike, followed by a brisk 10-minute walk on a treadmill, always with the incline turned up.
“His secretary would do the bike and treadmill alongside him, then sit it out while he moved on to the weights,” Masella recalled.
Then came strength work.
On the chest press machine, he lifted 15 kg with each arm, doing 20 reps per set for three or four sets. On the low-pull machine, a favorite of his — he completed four sets of ten reps with 25 kg on each arm.
“He wanted to use this machine to straighten his shoulders,” Masella explained.
Journalist Tom Kington, who tried the same routine for The Times, admitted he was quickly grimacing during the low pulls. “If the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics can do it, he’s pretty trim under his cassock,” he wrote.
The staff at Omega had no idea they were training a cardinal, let alone a future pope.
“He was a person like so many other members. He dressed like everyone else, in simple gym clothes,” said Alessandro Tamburlani, founder of the gym. “He was often accompanied by his assistant so he could work out.”
Tamburlani described his reaction when he realized who had been elected.
“I won’t hide the fact that I cheered wildly. My joy was doubled or tripled. Joy to finally have a new Holy Father after the obligatory period of mourning we went through. And joy also to know that he’s a good person and, moreover, someone we all already knew here at the gym.”
“He’s a shining light that allows us all to say that, if he can do it, we can all manage to take care of ourselves and exercise,” he said.
“In the modern life we lead, always in a hurry, too busy for our own good, he invites us to be aware of our bodies and begin to take control of them, guiding them toward an excellent experience that combines spirituality and sports training.”
That philosophy seems to reflect how Leo XIV sees his role, with both discipline and humility. Masella praised his condition as “exceptional” for his age, saying it was “typical of someone who has never stopped playing sports, with an excellent ratio of muscle mass, bone mass, and fat mass.”
Leo XIV also plays tennis, and earlier this week, he met with world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, who gifted him a new racket. There’s even a tennis court inside Vatican City, a little-known fact, and many at Omega hope he’ll continue playing.
