How Busy Executives Pump up a Better Performance on a Time-Limited Budget

by Bernard Kellerman

Knowing how important it is to fit fitness into their busy schedules, many executives have discovered how much the old gym has changed and how it helps them maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Long time gym user Peter Carre, now 53, remembers what gyms were like thirty years ago. "The instructors were ex-athletes who knew nothing about training and nutrition, and no stretching was ever done," he said.

The humble gym would be unrecognisable to anyone who hasn't stepped into one for a couple of decades. Now women push men off the weights benches and exercise machines, while more than a few males have conquered their fear of being seen on the aerobics floor. Advice on everything from triathlon training techniques to diet and lifestyle counselling is likely to be available from qualified staff.

Health club owners now strive to differentiate "their product" from the rest. The very upmarket 67 Executive Fitness claims not only to have the southern hemisphere's highest training pool, it offers comforts like cable TV in the sauna and a laundry service so good that its 100 members don't even need to bring gym bags.

A few hundred metres away, the more egalitarian Fitness to Perfection is also looking for ways to stay one step ahead. Owner Peter Teichmann is organising sports "mini-competitions" to match the seasons. Michael Andrews, a sports physiologist and personal trainer, thinks this is one way to make their members' training more fun, and to reward them for participating.

67 Executive Fitness member Peter Carre has his own business and investment advice company. He deals with large global financial institutions, advising them on how to structure their financial and investment services in this part of the world. "I started going to the gym because I'm an efficient man. I like to be doing more than one thing at once. I've always used gyms to get a lot of my reading done while I'm exercising," he said.

Demonstrating the point, Carre was building up a sweat on the step machine, magazine in perfect viewing position on the console.

Carre finds he gets enough strength work from resistance exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, stretching and yoga exercises, which allows his thoughts to percolate out after his reading.

"I try to work out whilst other people are at lunch, so by the time they're back, I'm back, Returning their phone calls between 12.30 and 2 is a bit meaningless because they're not there usually."

He also plays some recreational cricket, making him, by his reckoning, "one of the three Yanks who even know what cricket's about".

Tim Burroughs, who runs Merrill Lynch's mergers and acquisitions business in Australia, sits pedalling on a nearby exercise bike. He joined a gym 10 years ago, in his early thirties, after deciding he was losing his natural fitness. Before that, he got by just with running and playing tennis, which he still does.

"Everyone's starting to work harder. If you don't actually put aside the time you realise the weeks go by and you haven't taken any exercise," he said. "I travel a lot, so I would probably be here once or twice a week. If I'm travelling I go into the gym in the hotels that I stay at, or I take my running shoes. I was running round Central Park in New York three days ago. You just do what you can. I have a program that I can do at any gym."

About every 18 months he changes his program to stop getting stale, and sometimes has a trainer to work with him. "Having a trainer alongside, someone telling you to push beyond your comfort zone, certainly makes you work harder," he said.

The major factor in his choice of gym was the fact that it is just six floors above his office.

Like many of his peers, Burroughs firmly believes exercise is necessary to keep up with the long days everyone now works.

"Lunchtime is a good time: it's a double benefit you're not eating a lunch and you're exercising, so you get twice the bang for your buck," he said. "The people you're talking to are generally out of the office, so it's really the best time by far."

Highly experienced Victoria Wells is the manager of 67 Fitness, a health club in Sydney's CBD which caters specifically for time-poor business executives. "We try to impress upon busy people that a little money spent on fitness is as sound an investment as they make on their house, car, food or wine," she said. She emphasises the need to find time to keep in shape. "People these days spend their health gaining wealth."

Paul Nichol, CFO and Company Secretary for private investment bank Heathley Limited has been going to a gym for 14 years, since he gave up football at 33. He tries to get there five times per week for his one hour workout. He alternates between aerobic sessions for a cardiac workout and "Pump" classes, where participants use light weights for muscle toning, not for bulking up.

He says all this helps to relieve the stress that may have built up from a 7 am start. "Do I feel better for the daily training sessions? Absolutely".

Nichol works in the same building as his gym, a big factor for him, as it is for many wanting to squeeze as much as possible from the time available. "If I had to go out into the street and it was raining I'd make all kinds of excuses why I shouldn't go. Those reason are not available to me."

While Nichol is walking in the door to start his day's work at the office, another Heathley director, Tony Blower, is just starting his gym routine. Accused by five times a week gym goer Nichol of being a fitness fanatic, Blower recently returned from competing in a world-class veterans' rowing competition in Seville.

Not quite at that level, but showing just as much determination is Jody, a life insurance product adviser. She has been going to the same gym for ten years, with a three-year break. "I had to travel a lot for work, and I lost motivation," she said. "And when my daughter was born 18 months ago, I just couldn't be bothered, even though I knew I hadn't kept as fit as I should have."

Soon after, Jodie had what she calls "a significant life experience", separating from her husband. She was ready to go back to the gym, and lost 12 kilos in six months, shrinking from a size 14 to a size 10.

Jody much prefers to go at midday, saying "it works in well with the office". This leaves her about 45 minutes for exercising, switching between cardiovascular workouts and weights. "I used to go on the way home, but now if I left it until then I wouldn't go - the temptation to get back to my daughter would be too strong."

"I'm in the position of having to cope with a baby, day care, and with a full-time job. Although it's been a bit of effort, especially at the start, I found it gives me more energy at night."

It usually doesn't take much something so extreme to convince people to make time for their own sakes. As recent gym convert, Company Secretary and CFO for publicly listed investment company TAG Pacific Ltd., John Henderson said, "At 48 I decided I had a lot of life left to live and I wanted to live it as healthily as I possibly can."

Eighteen months ago he joined a health club, exercising properly for the first time in twenty years. He wanted the discipline of having to set aside a time and place every day, and values the guidance and support provided by the staff.

"I've felt very much better for coming here, not only at work, but at home as well. I don't need as much sleep. It's made me more conscious of my health and consequently I eat better, I probably don't drink as much. At lunch I have orange juice or water. No-one says a word about it now - there is a general awareness of health nowadays in positions such as mine."

Young Barnsdall and Co partner Simon Whitfield agrees. He decided to join a gym during winter two years ago, when he decided running at night was too difficult and unpleasant.

"I think you sleep better with regular gym sessions, but the biggest test is when you don't come for a while, once you've got into the routine - it's like a negative test," he said. "You can tell you've become fat and lazy. Even in a week."

Maquarie Bank Associate Director Julie Meyer, 35, is not plannning to find out about that fat and lazy feeling. She trains every day for at least an hour, including a weekly session with her personal trainer. Julie says of her trainer, "I've taken all her advice. She's like a god to me now."

Julie is one of four directors involved in a new startup division for Macquarie's Banking and Property Division. She prefers to do her training during the day, but will happily go before work to get herself the minimum one hour she needs to complete an aerobics or weights session. "My workday is flexible enough to give me the time and my employer is flexible enough to allow me the time. Among the directors within our division here we've actively promoted that if you're healthy you're far more productive."

This is what Michael Andrews, exercise physiologist and personal trainer at Fitness to Perfection, terms the concept of corporate wellness - the more healthy the staff of an organization the better it performs, all other things being equal. Andrews says research by the American College of Sports Medicine, applied locally, indicates that the average Australians doing just ten sit-ups per day would eliminate 80% of all lower back pain cases.

How many are you doing right now?

© 2002 Bernard Kellerman. Used with permission

Bernard Kellerman is a writer and photographer based in Sydney, Australia. He specialises in tax, finance and sports reporting.