3 EXERCISES FOR ELITE ATHLETES AND EXECUTIVES TO PROTECT THEIR LOWER BACK

David is an Executive Athlete today, but on the day I met him he had given up. As he says, he was “hiding from real life and hiding from the truth”. He used humour as a way of keeping criticism of his expanding waistline at bay. He was frustrated and embarrassed, and convinced that exercise just wasn’t for him anymore.

Deep down, David had known he had a problem for sometime. He knew his weight was an issue, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit it or ask for help. “As a moderately successful person”, he says, “it’s hard to expose yourself in such a way, to others and yourself, to be honest with yourself about how overweight you are, and how you have let yourself go. It’s embarrassing, it’s scary, and it certainly doesn’t fit with the sense of ego you have as a successful person.”

David worried about his weight every day, but what he didn’t know was that he wasn’t the only one worrying. Two people had front row seats to David’s struggle with obesity, and both were anxious spectators. David’s wife, Sam, and his executive assistant, Jess, had been watching as David, once a vibrant and beaming professional, came to prefer above all things the safety of the couch.

One day, when he was returning to his desk, David overheard a phone call between Jess and Sam. Rather than interrupting, he stopped and listened. They were talking about David’s weight and the effect it was having on his life. The words cut deeper than before because David wasn’t able to defend himself with a joke. What concerned him most of all, though, was the tone of the conversation. Years of using humour to deflect criticism of his weight had convinced him that he was the butt of everybody’s fat jokes, but Jess and Sam weren’t laughing. As he listened more, it became clear that they were scared about what the future held for David if he continued on the path he was on.

Not much later, David was on a family holiday at his parents’ home in Wagga Wagga. David’s mother filmed him playing with the kids in the backyard pool. When he watched the video that night, he didn’t like what he saw. He turned off the video and walked over to the scale in the bathroom. He weighed 110kg.

David had fallen prey to what those in the world of professional sport call ‘the creep’, the almost invisible lowering of standards that leads athletes to stop doing the extra work that led them to success. The true champions fight against the creep by setting new goals for themselves at every turn. The middle and back of the pack are full of people who once vied for the lead but have since allowed themselves to slide steadily backward. This is the creep, and for the executive, it can be all too easy to let the creep set in. The demands of the job make it all too easy to forget to take care of themselves. Since their health declines slowly, it is often hard for them to notice as they slide into obesity and sickness. Worst of all, their personal relationships suffer. Like so many other overweight executives, David was missing all those special moments with his beautiful wife and his growing kids.

David had allowed the creep to set it, but he had recognised the cost before it was too late. He saw the look of disappointment in his wife’s and his children’s eyes. This realisation became David’s moment of resolution. He knew that the time had come for him to do something, but he also knew he couldn’t do it on his own. He had tried once before to take up running, but on his first run he didn’t even make it two kilometres before he had to stop. He says he felt like he was having a heart attack: “I remember finishing it and thinking, ‘I can’t do this’, and at that moment I gave up.” He was determined not to let himself be defeated so easily again.

It was only a few days later that I met David for the first time. He turned up to his first session with Jess and Leanne, two of the fittest girls in his office. David let the girls set the pace, and before long he was sprawled on his back in the Domain. Jess and Leanne joked that neither of them would be giving David mouth to mouth if he stopped breathing. 

A week later I was sitting in David’s plush corner office, where he told me that he would let me train him. “But”, he said, looking me straight in the eye, “if you push me, I will quit”. That was then.

This is now. I am writing this on a Saturday in August. It has been six years since our first session and at 7am this morning David deadlifted 140kg. He is still four weeks away from reaching his goal of 150kg, but he and I both know he’ll get there. These early-morning sessions have become an important ritual for David. They help prepare him for his always-full weekend schedule. This weekend, his son Will has a rugby game and his daughter has a hockey game. He’s going to be at both games. He will spend the rest of the day playing with his niece, his nephew and the kids while his wife does a trial session at the gym David attends during the week.

After completing his fifth City2Surf with Will two weeks ago, David wants to improve his 1.6km time so I have written him a program to help him set a new personal best. After his Sunday morning sprint session, he’ll be heading to Centennial Park to start training for the 90km Sydney to Wollongong bike ride, which he’ll also be doing with Will. Next weekend, he’ll be one of my competitors in the Nike Fastest Mile event on Saturday, and we will be teeing off in the Sunday comp at Ryde-Parramatta Golf Course.

This is the same man who, not six years ago, preferred the safety of the couch to something as physically undemanding as a family walk in the park. He’s physically transformed. He’s lost 32kg of fat and added 7kg of muscle, and he’s done it all by following the Compass. His willingness to say yes to anything physical, which stopped surprising me long ago, has taken him a long way. But as much as he loves to face east, he’s also made sure to orient himself to the other directions as well. He executes his nutrition program, rests when he needs rest, and he calms his mind when he feels stressed.

David enjoys all of the obvious benefits of exercise: he has as much energy as he did when he was a teenager, he’s happier and he’s healthier. His body is stronger and so are his relationships. He’s also become a powerful and inspiring leader. When I met him he was in a technically specialised executive role. Today he is COO at eftpos. His newfound fearlessness in the face of challenges and his ability to engage deeply with stakeholders at every level made him a natural fit for the C suite.

David, like any executive, was time-poor but he didn’t allow that to stop him. He saw this for the hollow excuse it was. He says, “People will tell you it’s the real reason, but it’s not. The real reason is you are afraid—afraid that you can’t do it. You’re afraid of everything you should be doing and doing well.” But behind the door you are most afraid to open is your greatest opportunity for achievement. David describes the beginning of his journey as “f***ing scary”. What he got out of overcoming that fear and winning is an immense sense of pride and accomplishment: “It wasn’t part of who I was, but it is a fundamental part of who I have become.”

Becoming an Executive Athlete involves staring down your biggest fear and winning. It will be one of the greatest moments of personal growth in your adult life. To be able to transform your health from your biggest liability into your greatest asset will change how you define yourself as a leader, partner and parent.

As an Executive Athlete the best years of your life are ahead of you.

Becoming a parent is the purest form of leadership. Yet, the best leaders can struggle with this relationship the most. This is the voice of regret from a marketing executive who spent the first 14 years of his daughter’s life tethered to his desk. Leadership is hard to execute from a distance. To win the love, trust and friendship of your children sometimes you have to get in the trenches and play.

Grant Feller is a marketing executive and journalist for The Telegraph and Huffington Post. In this article he expertly sums up the male condition:

“As men, we like to think we’re expert at most things, but the one talent we all share is an extraordinary capacity for self-delusion. The Adonis in the mirror, the double-handed backhand that not even Djokovic could have returned, the bookshelf we built that isn’t at all wonky. And, of course, how wonderful we think we are as dads.”
Feller describes his early experiences with fatherhood as “I was hardly ever there” until four years ago when he was made redundant, started a business from home and became a proper dad.

With this massive change, he had the opportunity to reflect on the five regrets that he had as a disappointing dad who worked too much.

1) NOT BEING THERE

Feller confesses about not standing up to a bully of a boss when forced to miss his daughters solo performance and the disappointment in his sons face when he missed the time he scored a goal. What Feller and his children missed was the hormone serotonin.

When a child receives award or recognition in front of their parents it is serotonin that causes the feelings of pride, status, and confidence. The parent in the audience also gets a hit of serotonin and experiences the same feelings of pride. This is what serotonin is trying to do — create the bond between child and parent.

2) SPENDING MY WEEKEND WORKING

Smart phones have made this a constant battle. Feller apologizes for reading work emails and responding to messages when he should have been getting his hand dirty in cookie dough, not on his phone.

David Heine, the very first Executive Athlete, shares “I’m half good but not great. I’m a big believer, when I get home I’m not at home to do work. If I’ve got to do something big that I have to do work on the weekend, I’m going to the office. I’ll try and avoid that if I can. But these things (smartphone) are a bloody nightmare.”

3) PUTTING THE FEAR OF GOD INTO YOU

When executives have put under pressure their tactical knowledge and direct language will sharpen to ensure they get the right result. The biggest mistake the executive can make is to bring that level of expectation and communication into their family relationships.

Feller confesses that his brutal post-school report assessments may have been overreactions and he would rather he instilled confidence, a smile on your face and an ability to navigate the world without any trouble.

4) FORCING YOU TO INHERIT MY TASTES

Executives are used to getting their own way. When you are sitting on the top of an org chart you have the power to overrule just about any decision that is made by the team. Once the decision is made the team has two options — accept the decision or find another job.

Families don’t work like that. It’s all on the line and if you get it wrong you run the risk of being alone. You run the risk of actually genuinely failing at leadership. The skill that you are based your career on.

5) BRINGING MY WORK MOOD HOME

Mark Adams, COO of Versent, counts this as the biggest work challenge for the executive. “It is basically the demands. It’s the time with family. Balancing that out with the work demands and the biggest challenge actually is going home and emptying my head of everything that’s happening at work and actually being at home. That’s my biggest personal challenge.”

Feller apologizes for not reading his daughter a night-time story instead of stewing in his post-work hangover. He shares “I could have been nice because you had nothing to do with the hideous day I’d just had.”

The damage that the destruction of at home relationships causes can be immense. It cuts deeper than any work-related stress. I have seen the most powerful of men totally derailed when their 13-year-old son or daughter put distance between them.

How you navigate the way your work and home life interconnect will be deeply personal. I’m not here to tell you how to parent your children.

What I can tell you is that so often the stress that dogs the success can quickly sour relationships with family and friends. Your loved ones require more than just your presence. They need sincere communication. They need you to engage with them, to remember those important shared moments and to be there to create new ones.