Insider Training
One of the hottest tips on Wall Street is out - a Midtown Manhattan gym where financial titans head for all-business workouts.
WORTH YOUR WEIGHT
The ultra-private Sitaras Fitness requires at least two one-hour sessions a week.
Imagine billionaire CEOs and hedge fund managers sweating it out in a no-frills gym with air-conditioning outages a que for the showers and a 70-pound bag of rocks for over-the-head lifts all while SUV limousines and personal security details idle outside. This happened daily a couple of years ago at a Mid-town New York gym. "They were very very loyal," saya John Sitaras tbe 35 year-old trainer who has a fleet of industry captains as clients. Legends like James D. Robinson III, the leveraged buyout financier immortalized in Barbarians at the gate, arrived early three days a week and never complained. He even broke a gym record wiIh an 800 pound leg press (Barbarian or not, Robinson, like the rest of Sitara's clients, never wielded the sack of rubble.)
Nowadays, getting in shape with Sitaras, a soft spoken body builder turned physical therapist, is decidedly more luxurious, thanks in part to several clients who financed Sitaras Fitness, his year-old ultramodern club on Manhattan's East Side. Insiders exalt the gym's client services and see it is a far more than a tony c1ubhouse £or overachievers - it's a life-altering fitness regime and a secret they'd like to keep quiet.
The gym is unmarked from the street, tucked away on the twelfth floor of a high-rise. It's discreet enough for Jules Kroll, 66--chief executive of the billion dollar security company Kroll, Inc.- who enthuses, "If you want to have a virtually private workout, you can achieve that." At the heart of the facility are vast racks of free weights and 17 strength-training machines that each target a single muscle, some of which Sitaras custom designed. Newfangled exercise gizmos that talk back are nowhere to be found. "When clients are on the gym floor, they're doing what really works: hard work with good standard equipment and a great exercise routine," Sitaras says. "Nothing fancy." Except for the $45,000 Veletron stationary bike, a computerized ventilation system that circulates purified air, and Elan hi-fi speakers that pipe in personalized playlists. A phalanx of Lifecyde cardia machines looks out over the club's sprawling terrace garden, which blooms with hydrangeas in the summer. (The $92,000 landscaping tab was picked up by a generous member who, coincidentally, maintains coveted 8:00 A.M. training sessions with Sitaras himself.)
Barry F. Schwartz, 58, general counsel of Ron Perelman's investment holding company, MacAndrews & Forbes, Inc., explains the gym's all-business appeal: "People are there to work out. You don't go there to chat with other people. You don't go there to have smoothie. "While many members have business and philanthropic connections in common, the gym isn't a place for networking - time is too precious. Sitaras requires that members average at least two one-hour training sessions per week, a quota that most exceed despite the demands of their jobs. (The gym has a client as young as 15 - he's a billionaire - but moSt are careerists between 35 and 55; the oldest is the august venture capitalist Fred Adler, 82.)
Kroll, the security mogul, joined years ago. "What I like about training with John: It's all about mathematics,.. he says, referring to Sitaras's practice of keeping a chart with hard data on each client's regimen and progress, something Sitaras picked up while working as a physical therapist at Lenox Hill Hospital. Another gym regular, a hedge fund manager, began subsidizing the membership of one of his colleagues after the man failed to perfonn push-ups during an office competition. For this type A, by-the¬numbers crowd, the bottom line is measurable physical results.
Like a Savile Row tailor, Sitaras understands the body on a minute level, leveraging small changes in musculature to great effect. "On your arm, 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch more muscle makes a huge difference," he explains. "People will think you've gained 30 pounds of muscle, that you've added five inches onto your arm. But you don't need to--you tailor it in." New members begin by getting assessed over 6 to 12 one-hour sessions that gauge flexibility, muscle strength and endurance, body fat, and cardiorespiratory capacity. After the process is complete, Sitaras
custom-designs strength-building workouts to be executed under his direction or one of his trainers, whom he calls his "clones." Though the gym's membership is currently about 75, not everyone gets to train with Sitaras himself. "My hours are limited-I can't do everyone. But some members can't take no for an answer. So they bid amongst themselves," says Sitaras. "They are agressive."
Through years of close inside proximity to his clients, Sitaras has gleaned glimpses of the minds of his moguls.
For Robinson, who is 71 and has a physique that resembles a slightly younger Jack LaLanne, keeping fit is an outlet for psychological relief. As he puts it : "If you're sitting in a meeting and you get pissed, then go pump some iron."
Others see the gym as a sanctuary, where their time belongs to them. It's not uncommon for these men - often top financial wizards - to lose count of their repetitions. "They always lose track," laughs Sitaras. "They're sick of numbers and SO happy to let go and have somebody else in charge," he says. "So I count for them."
Sitaras handpicks his clients from a long list of applicants. It's dedication he's looking for in new members. Aher an interview, there is one more hoop to keep unsavory profiteers away: a background check. Those, as it happens, are provided courtesy of Kroll, Inc. For the few who are accepted, the monthly dues --- a few hundred dollars - are no sweat.
JONATBAN s. PAUL
Mens Vogue, November 2007
Sitaras Fitness, 150 East 58th Street,
12th floor, New York, NY 10155,
212 702 9700