How the wealthy stay healthy: riding, swimming, running and meditation caves
The rich have more money than most to help stave off ageing. So what are they doing, mainstream and experimental, to stay in tip-top shape?
Cryotherapy chambers, mountain biking, touch football, meditation caves, kava, intravenous treatments, stretching and plenty more.
Some rich folk will do just about anything to stave off the ageing process.
Money can’t buy happiness, and nor can it buy the motivation needed to stay in shape. It can’t keep you alive forever, either.
But it can certainly buy plenty of fancy machines and other equipment that helps some of Australia’s richest people stay as fit as possible.
Here’s how some members of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 keep trim.
Tim Gurner
Tim Gurner calls his exercise, diet and wellness regime all about “having as healthy a life as I possibly can, and being as healthy as I can be for as long as I can”.
That mentality is why Gurner, a Melbourne property developer, has put his money where his mouth is by establishing the Saint Haven upscale private health club business.
Saint Haven is a $150m investment in what Gurner calls “a luxury club that just happens to be good at wellness as well”.
There’s cryotherapy chambers, hyperbaric oxygen pods, red light therapy, IV drips, a huge gym, yoga and reformer pilates classes in dedicated rooms, a meditation cave, massage, physiotherapy and other treatments. Such treatments are not suitable for everyone, and doctors have expressed caution.
Across somewhere between 1600sq m and 2000sq m of space (Gurner had to combine four tenancies for Saint Haven’s South Yarra outlet), there’s also ice plunge pools, sauna, a thermal mineral pool, and a waterproof sunken lounge.
There’s even a full-time chef and a full bar producing healthy smoothies and cocktails, coffee and kava, as well as co-working space and even a boardroom for members to book.
And it is extremely popular. Membership is full at Saint Haven’s two outlets in Melbourne, at Collingwood and South Yarra, and an upcoming one in swanky Toorak is already sold out.
Gurner won’t say how many members they have or what the annual cost is – it has been reported that some memberships are worth $50,000 each year – but he notes there is a 20,000-strong waiting list.
“It is pretty clear demand is more than supply,” he says.
Gurner just about has a deal in place for Saint Haven’s first Sydney base to open next year, and he wants another there by the end of 2025.
Saint Haven also provides a good base for Gurner’s weekly training regime, which involves a combination of mobility training, exercise, taking supplements and a testing regime to make sure he is in good shape physically and mentally.
Gurner wakes up somewhere between 5.15am and 5.30am, does about 15 minutes of meditation and then writes in his gratitude journal while sipping coffee. After that, he trains.
“Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays is heavy strength and it’s really a bodybuilding program which is based on a high number of sets, which is about five to six sets, of maximum weights possible. That’s about two to three reps, which is incredibly draining on the nervous system,” Gurner explains.
“On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do cardio. Tuesday is what we call zone two cardio which is about 45 minutes at about 130 (heart) beats per minute, which is an easy session. Thursday is what we call zone five, which is about a minute on for about as hard as you can go, then a minute rest, which is my hardest day of the week.”
Saturdays is all body HIT (high intensity) training, which is a mixture of cardio and weight training, and that is then followed by what Gurner calls “surrender Sunday” – which can include breathing work, a sauna, IV drip treatments and ice baths. All of that is typically done at Saint Haven.
Gurner also does 20 minutes of mobility work including stretching each day, and on cardio days he will do 20 minutes of red light therapy or 20 minutes of exercise with oxygen therapy. He also does some PMF, or pulsed magnetic field, therapy, and on Sundays he will also have a sauna session.
Gurner also meticulously measures his daily food intake – he’s currently eating 2800 calories each day, but that can go up to 3300 depending on his training load – and takes at least 40 tablets and supplements.
What is next on the horizon? Gurner wants to run a marathon for the first time, and is aiming for the 2025 edition of the New York Marathon – one of the biggest and best annual running events in the world.
“I’ve been there when a couple of mates have done it, and it’s amazing how the city sets up for it,” Gurner says. “The cardio training I do will help me get ready for it, and I can’t wait to run the event myself.”
The Royal Australian College of GPs says people wishing to explore alternative therapies should seek advice from their doctor. “If you have questions about or hear of an unconventional treatment, even if others claim it worked in their own case against the advice of a ‘conventional’ doctor, please ask your GP for advice,” an RACGP spokesman says.
The Therapeutic Goods Association, which regulates the supply of therapeutic goods, says any decision to use cryotherapy or red light therapy must consider the benefits of treatment and ensure they outweigh any potential risks.
Max Beck
Max Beck wants to make clear that he’s only talking about his fitness regime to shame some other “old blokes” into doing a better job looking after their health.
Beck’s mates will have a hard time catching the 83-year-old property doyen though.
It is now 30 years since Beck first got on a bike, and he is still riding about 200km a week (Some of his billionaire friends like to joke he does that much because he isn’t working too hard these days).
That is pretty decent for an octogenarian, but then consider the route Beck likes to take: from his home on the cliff tops of Portsea overlooking the bay down at Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula up to the lookout at Arthur’s Seat somewhere between 25km and 30km away.
Arthur’s Seat is a favourite among riders, featuring plenty of hairpins and switchbacks and an average gradient of about 8.1 per cent, according to cycling websites.
“Not bad for an old bloke,” Beck likes to quip.
Beck, best known as the co-founder of Becton and later Beck Property group and the co-owner of Essendon Airport with billionaire Lindsay Fox, will do the route a few times a week with a group of mates who he has dubbed the Sorrento chapter of the Bay Riders.
His “club” started 30 years ago when Beck, until then an avid runner who used to jog regularly with a group around Brighton’s Dendy Park in bayside Melbourne, was advised by doctors to give up running for the sake of his increasingly sore knees.
“So we did, and while there was nervousness with the traffic we got over that pretty quickly. We didn’t have too many accidents with cars and the group built in Melbourne to around 35 guys.
“We used to have a Clubman trophy, we’d have an annual dinner and it built into quite a big deal. And then I decided to spend more time down the coast and open up a Sorrento chapter.”
Beck plays plenty of golf and sailed in the past, but riding is his main passion. He rode from Melbourne to Sydney in 2000, raising $500,000 for disadvantaged children, and has four or five bikes – one was given to him by his friend Gerry Ryan, who owns a Tour de France team.
While he will extol the virtues of riding to anyone who will listen, Beck has had a few scrapes over the years. In 2021, he was riding past a group of emergency workers when somehow an electrical wire being fixed overhead came unstuck and lassoed Beck around the neck.
A few years earlier, he ran head first into a parked car on the Gold Coast. There were plenty of bruises and scrapes but a nonplussed Beck survived to tell the tale.
Beck says he has recently changed the name of his riding group to Bay Riders Community, to better reflect the support, mental and physical, the group give to the members and others – including taking part in the annual Strike or Ride on November 10, which included a 60km ride from Portsea to Dromana and back.
The event raised money for The Portsea Camp, which gives support to disadvantaged and vulnerable children in Victoria, with tailored wellness programs and camps to build resilience, leadership and personal growth for young people.
“That’s the biggest part of it, better than the exercise. I think it’s 50 per cent of the exercise really, the mental health side of it. There’s such fantastic support amongst the guys,” Beck says.
“There’s guys from all sorts of backgrounds and we’ve got a doctor, we’ve got a pharmacist, we’ve got a genius here and there. But as soon as someone has an issue within the group, it’s solved within 24 hours. There are lots of suggestions and help.
“And we ride together. I mean, we go out together and we come home together. The slowest rider is our pace, basically.”
Harry Triguboff
At the age of 91, Harry Triguboff admits that he is no fan of exercise.
But the founder and boss of Sydney apartment giant Meriton has a daily regime that keeps him strong and fit enough to still head to the office – and plenty of building sites – each day.
“I do exercise five times a week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I have three different trainers; they come to my house,” the billionaire property magnate, who is also patron of Bowel Cancer Australia, explains.
“I lift weights and I do a lot of exercises to remain stable. I do machines, I have all the machines.”
Triguboff starts the day with the exercises and is also often seen walking around the streets of Vaucluse with friends, particularly on the weekends.
He also has no fewer than three swimming pools at his Vaucluse compound, adding an indoor pool after buying his next door neighbour’s house a few years ago. That was in addition to the two pools he already has.
Even though he is in his 90s, Triguboff still sets a good pace when he walks around building sites and every January is seen bounding up and down the stairs at centre court for the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Tennis is one of his great passions as a spectator and he has been a long-time backer of NRL club Wests Tigers.
But Triguboff admits to being no great sportsman.
Does he like doing the almost daily exercises?
“No,” is the firm reply.
“I like to play billiards, though.”
Graham Turner
At the age of 74, Graham Turner’s one nod to slowing down is using an e-bike to complete a 67km mountain bike ride in September.
“It is still quite difficult,” Turner, the co-founder of Flight Centre, explains. “It might be much easier on your legs but it is still tough on your shoulders and the rest of your body, like a normal mountain-bike ride is.
“I was pretty buggered the next day, that’s for sure. I’m definitely slowing down; it’s the 23rd time we have run what we call the Epic ride. The old body has changed a bit since then.”
The ride was at Hidden Vale, about an hour out of Brisbane where Turner and wife Jude maintain a 100km mountain-bike track at their Spicers rural retreat that sits on 12,000 acres (4850ha).
“It’s one of the better ones in Australia and it’s a commercial enterprise. Not that we make too much money out of it. We’ve got four or five people who maintain it full-time and it’s eventful. You get the daily ambulance or chopper in there. Rain is one of our enemies, so are cattle,” Turner says drolly.
He laments that he’s also not up to competing in the full Noosa triathlon at his age, but will still go along to support his son, who has done it for 21 consecutive years.
“I’m not fit enough these days. I realise my swimming is not up to it.”
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get through a power of exercise each week, including a little bit of swimming.
“My regime is on Monday or Wednesday to try to go for a swim. It is about a kilometre to walk down there to the pool and while I’ll only do a few hundred metres it’s great exercise for the whole body,” Turner says.
“On Tuesdays and Thursdays we play touch football at lunchtime at work, which we’ve been doing for 24 years. We have a few different rules, like playing 10 per side now.”
Turner then does a walk or a run on a Saturday, particularly when he and Jude head to Noosa for the weekend. After a coffee at Aromas on Hastings Street, he will head up the hill at a nearby national park.
“What I’ll usually do is walk up there and then run down. It’s about a two-hour circuit, roughly 12km. Then I’ll get out on the mountain bike on Sundays.”
Turner says he has tried to exercise and stay fit most of his adult life – “you go through periods when it’s harder to do that, like when you’ve got young kids” – and has been a keen marathon runner.
So what is his ambition for what is up next?
“I’ve got a group and we did the London marathon two years ago. I certainly don’t do them as quickly as I used to, and there’s discipline in training for them,” he says.
“As you get older, which I class as over 70 like me, your ambition to do anything really out of the box decreases a bit.
“But I am toying with the idea of doing the London marathon in 2026. That’s a good challenge, provided I get into training for it in the next few months.”
Arthur Laundy
Sydney pub baron Arthur Laundy might have one of the most diverse exercise habits among the billionaires on the Richest 250.
Laundy is a former rugby union player turned rugby league sponsor of his beloved NRL team the Canterbury Bulldogs through his Laundy Hotels group.
He jokes that he used to get some good physical workouts helping to handle security at pubs back in the day, before outsourcing that function.
“It was quite a bit of exercise from time to time.” Laundy reminisces.
These days, the only sport Laundy wants to witness at one of his family’s pubs is what is showing on the television.
Most other Sydney billionaires have harbourside mansions where their pool overlooks some of the most stunning waterfront in the world.
Laundy has stuck to the city’s west though, where he gets good use out of the facilities at his apartment complex overlooking the Parramatta River.
It is there that he swims 10 laps of the 30m pool every day, a habit that he has stuck to for more than two decades.
“There’s also a gym and bike riding,” Laundy explains. “I don’t do anything too exciting in the gym, but I do a lot of stretching.”
Laundy does a mixture of freestyle and backstroke in the pool.
Outdoors, the 82-year-old has spent at least 60 years playing golf – a sport he tries to participate in once a week.
Laundy recently spent a couple of weeks playing golf in and around Palm Springs in California with son Craig Laundy, taking a break from the weekly ins and outs of watching the Bulldogs in the NRL as the team made a much needed and welcome charge to the finals series.
About a decade ago, Laundy scored his first hole-in-one after 55 years of playing golf, when he reportedly aced a hole at the Bonnie Doon Golf Club in Pagewood during a pro-am tournament.
