If you stick to exercise, it is an investment
with a guaranteed return
Kyriakos Onisiforou
number of staff. There may not be a clear
monetary return on their investment but it
is there.”
So, is Onisiforou suggesting that those
who are suffering from the present situation
in Cyprus can benefit by doing some kind of
anti-Troika physical exercise? Yes, he is.
“Not moving will always create more
problems. Anyone in the business world who
works out will tell you that your brain is in
“supercharged” mode after a good training
session. You can withstand more pressure
and think more clearly after exercise. And if
you stick to exercise, it is an investment with
a guaranteed return. The most basic result is
that you will feel good. When you have an
active body, you will think more effectively
and find better solutions.”
Fitness, says Onisiforou, is all about
progress in your day-to-day workout and
how it can gradually improve your health and
fitness levels. This concept can be applied to
the Cyprus banking sector, he says, “which
tried to produce much more than it was
capable of. If we compare the economy to an
athlete, we are looking at one who has been
on steroids for so long that he is on the verge
of collapse. It’s an accurate analogy. If you
don’t prepare properly for the athlete’s exit
from steroid use, he will be destroyed. On
the other hand, he can be saved and return to
normality but the necessary measures have to
be taken seriously, step by step, all the way.
Similarly, if someone wants to lose 20 kilos,
it can’t be done it in a couple of months.
As a country we are carrying a lot of fat and
too many harmful, artificial things inside us.
If we want to get out of this recession, we
have to get rid of the bad things and take the
correct steps that will allow us gradually to
return to economic fitness.”
Measures to revive the economy and
stimulate growth are the responsibility of
those in government. But how is the man
in the street supposed to adapt to the new
situation? One of the obvious effects on
people is that we are now cutting down
on luxuries and scrutinising everything to
ensure that we are obtaining the best value
for money when we do pay for things. The
fitness market, says Onisiforou, can act as a
natural remedy to what’s going on. “Having
worked in it for so long, I have seen people
from all sorts of backgrounds, from someone
running a business generating millions
of euros a year to someone generating
€30,000 per year. They all have one thing in
common: they want value for their money.
They want “the real deal”, especially now
that their trust in so many institutions has
been shattered. If it was difficult to persuade
people to invest in fitness before, it is going
to be even harder now.”
Onisiforou predicts that, as a result of the
crisis, many gyms will be forced to close,
given that most of them are run on a monthto-month basis and have already begun
to face serious cash flow problems. “It’s
common practice in good, well-managed
gyms to have at least three months of base
operating expenses in hand in order to
withstand an event like this,” he explains.
“If you are struggling to make your expenses
each month, you are not capitalising on
your clientele. The retention rate should
be around 80% in any kind of service
industry but here it might be 40%. Gyms
need to focus on the value they are giving to
customers and on win-win solutions. The
usual reactive method is discounting but it
ultimately hurts the business. It may bring
cash for one month but, for the following
months, the people who have bought a
discounted membership won’t bring in any
additional revenue.”
The more imaginative gym/health centre
operators are offering people something
new, he says. “If we assume that health
and fitness are not going to be at the top of
anyone’s list of priorities during a crisis when
funds are low, one way of helping people is
to offer them information on how to train
themselves, for example. If you take your dog
out for walks or you have a bicycle, you can
get your exercise but it’s useful to know how
much you should do. Such a service is good
for people who want to pay less and it’s
also good for the gyms because they will be
paid for providing a service to those who are
probably unwilling to pay to go to the gym.”
The concept of fitness as a permanent
aspect of one’s lifestyle doesn’t appear to
have caught on in Cyprus yet and a time of
economic crisis is unlikely to encourage such
a development. “It will come to Cyprus,”
says Onisiforou, “but fitness trends can take
anything from 6 months to 2 years to arrive
here and be adopted. To a certain degree
the difference comes down to a different
mindset. Overseas, there is a growing trend
towards training for the feelgood aspect of
it whereas you rarely hear someone here say
that they want to exercise for this reason.
In Cyprus, both men and women go to the
gym to look better. Some 95 out of 100 will
say they want to lose some fat (women) or
put on some muscle (men). We all want
fast, probably superficial solutions to our
perceived problems.”
Fast solutions are surely what we want
in everything today. What does Onisiforou
say to the stressed-out businessman who
claims that he has no time for exercise?
“It’s not about ‘having time’, it’s about
‘making time’,” he says. “It is a fact that the
businessman who doesn’t train reacts more
slowly than those who do. I see people of 50
who are taking 5 to 10 pills a day! They are
still young! How is their body going to work
properly? The brain is affected by the body’s
lack of physical exercise. If we don’t take
care of our bodies, the bad effect appears in
the space of a few months. Imagine what
can happen over 5 or 10 years. We can all
find 30 minutes a d