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INTERVIEW


PHILLIP MILLS W


As Les Mills UK is launched, Magali Robathan talks to the founder of BODYPUMP™ about the future of fitness, children’s exercise and greening the industry


hen I meet Phillip Mills, founder of Les Mills International (LMI) and creator of


the phenomenally successful range of group fitness programmes includ- ing BODYPUMP™, BODYCOMBAT™ and BODYJAM™, he’s nearing the end of a six-week stint in the UK.


Mills’ main reason for being in the


country is to help launch Les Mills UK. For the past 15 years, Fitness Professionals (FitPro) has been responsible for distributing LMI’s exer- cise programmes in the UK, but early this year, LMI bought the distributor- ship business from FitPro and will now deliver the programmes directly to its UK partners via Les Mills UK. “FitPro have been growing their own business,” says Mills. “They need to focus on that and at the same time we have got to a point of critical mass where we are developing really signifi- cant innovation at a constant rate. To implement that properly into a market really needs a dedicated agency that


has all its resources focused on keeping up with the innovation.” FitPro and LMI have been work- ing together on the handover, with the new Les Mills UK office based in FitPro’s offices until May. The FitPro staff that were dedicated to the Les Mills products – around 50 of them – are being kept on by Les Mills UK, and former CEO of LMI, Jill Tattersall, is managing the tran- sition. A new chief executive will be recruited to head up the UK company. Six 'club coaches' – senior industry consultants who will be given training by LMI – will also be recruited to sup- port clubs using the LMI programmes.


THE CLASSES Les Mills International is the world’s biggest provider of exercise to music programmes, with 14,000 clubs using their 10 programmes across 80 coun- tries. The word pioneer is massively overused, but in Phillip Mills’ case, it really is justified – the standardised exercise classes that he developed


played a huge part in popularising group exercise around the world. Mills famously started his career in health and fitness as a cleaner at his parents’ gym in Auckland, New Zealand. His father, Les Mills, was an Olympic athlete, representing New Zealand in shot put, discus and weightlifting, while his mother Colleen competed in the Commonwealth Games, as did Phillip and his sis- ter Donna. Les and Colleen opened their first gym in 1968 in Auckland, which started as a sport-based facility, mainly employing athletes as staff. In the 1970s, the family put a small


Les Mills classes are now run in clubs across 80 countries 32 Read Leisure Management online leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital


group exercise studio into the gym, and following a stint spent studying in Los Angeles, Phillip Mills decided to liven up their fitness classes by combining the skills of sports professionals and theatre and dance teachers, and com- ing up with choreography to hit music. “We started to take a really focused approach to group exercise,” says Mills. “We only had one studio at the time, and we focused on developing our own group exercise programming and building a teacher training system. Our classes became so popular that we were bursting out through the walls


ISSUE 2 2012 © cybertrek 2012


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