Keeping them in shape

A personal trainer is a must-have for India's jet-setting billionaires. Reji John lists the wellness gurus who keep India Inc fighting fit.

Yashovardhan (Yash) Birla's penchant for physical fitness is no secret. The industrialist loves to flaunt his biceps. Last year, he even released a DVD, 100% Living, featuring footage of his daily workout along with his personal fitness and diet tips.

With a spacious private gym on the terrace of his Malabar Hill home in Mumbai, Birla works out regularly with his personal trainer, Jivesh Shetty. Birla prefers to work out usually for an hour late in the evening. Though he loves weight training, which he does four times a week, Birla is also into cycling, power yoga, walking and martial arts. Shetty, who specialises in research and development in nutrition and training, has been training Birla for several years. For Birla, fitness is so crucial that Shetty often travels with him.

Today, few celebrities and industrialists exercise alone. For privacy, exclusivity and convenience, they equip their homes with high-tech gyms and have a personal trainer to ensure correct form and technique and to boost their motivational levels. Mickey Mehta, one of the better known names in the fitness industry, has been training and coaching celebrities and members of some of India's well-known business families for nearly three decades. He believes that if you have a gym at home, you'd end up exercising six days a week instead of two or three times a week.

Mehta promotes the healing systems of meditation and prayer science and has been spreading the message of holistic health. He has blended the disciplines of exercises like calisthenics, functional training, boot camp, agility drills, tai chi, pilates, yoga and swimming. He has been a personal trainer and wellness coach to Vindi Banga (former Unilever president), Anil Ambani, Nita Ambani, Rajashree Birla, Kumar Mangalam and Neerja Birla, Rati Godrej, Shashi Ruia and his wife, among several others.

Then there is Mustafa Ahmed, who has been a personal trainer to businessmen, sportsmen and celebrities for the last six years. He now trains Anand Piramal, the 28-year-old son of Mumbai-based industrialist couple Ajay and Swati Piramal, at the gym in Piramal's home in Worli. Ahmed says he works only with people who are very serious about their fitness regime and want to see a transformation in themselves. For the young Piramal, who is the executive director of Piramal group's real estate arm, Piramal Realty, fitness is a priority.

Like Piramal, the youthful and multifaceted Geetanjali Kirloskar, granddaughter-in-law of the late S L Kirloskar and wife of Vikram Kirloskar (chairman and MD of Kirloskar Systems and vice-chairman of Toyota Kirloskar Motor), attributes her good health and fitness to regular exercise. Geetanjali, chairperson of Kirloskar Technologies, has a gym at her home and a trainer on call.

Personal fitness training, says Mumbai-based celebrity-fitness expert Leena Mogre, has today become very scientific, specialised and extremely goal-oriented. Mogre, who has been a personal trainer to Anil Ambani, says the oft-asked question in the super-rich circle today is: 'Who is your personal trainer', just like one would ask 'who is your fashion designer?'