Compromise on Sleep Adds to Fatigue
The CEOs that I have worked with want their fitness regimen to empower them to rise up to the challenges in office (long hours, coffee, frequent transcontinental flights, etc) and outside (home, kids, partying, social commitments),” says CEO and fitness instructor Rujuta Diwekar. “They want to own that dream car, dream house and that dream body.” Adds K Radhakrishnan, 52, president, Future Freshfoods and former CEO of Reliance Retail: “The trouble with executives in the age group 40-55 is that they want to look like Salman Khan with a six-pack ab.” Often, they don’t realise the perils their desires can lead them to.
A corporate executive who spends 18 hours in office cannot take additional stress by spending hours in the gym. Renowned cardio surgeon Naresh Trehan cautions: You cannot gym one day a week and overdo it that day. It is okay if you are gymming every day or every other day. But if you do it in spurts, it can damage your bones, harm your metabolism and give you body aches. Also, compromise on sleep can add to fatigue, he adds.
Ambitious executives often learn this the hard way. Radhakrishnan recounts the story of a friend who works at a large corporate where there is an unspoken bias towards leaner, fitter managers. The 48-yearold with a 43-inch waist line decided he had to shed the flab to fast-track his career. He started a punishing two-hour morning gym with an aggressive trainer. Result: He slept through meetings and also wound up with knee and neck problems. It took him a year to grow wiser. He now spends six hours a week at the gym with a liberal dose of yoga and has a sensible trainer.
Radhakrishnan himself slowed down much before he had any trouble. He cut the number of hours in the gym by half when he crossed 50, quit his 11 hours-a-week tennis schedule and started practising yoga and pranayam. A balance between health conditions and working hours are important, he says.
Jain hasn’t been to a gym in three years. He too has settled for yoga instead. “My knees are much better, I feel energetic through the day even though I start work by 8-8.15am and my cholesterol and BP are under control,” he says. He says that even while he was gymming and thought he was fit, his basic health parameters were not in order. Jain has also changed his eating and drinking habits. A glass of beer or wine is all that he has four times a week and dinner is usually light. “Sleep is the most important (along with hydration in a city like Mumbai) for being healthy,” says Rashesh Shah, chairman of the Edelweiss Group. “A good 6-7 hours sleep is essential. I find that if I have not slept enough then after a couple of days, exercise is tough to do and not fun. So I ensure that I rest well.” Trehan’s parting advice to the super CEO: De-stress, but do not let the gym work against you.
RUNNING AWAY: Bharti-Walmart MD Raj Jain has quit gymming
