FITTEST MAN UNDER 50. WINNERS: (TIE) SCOTT KASHMAN OF ST. JOSEPH MEDICAL CENTER AND MARK ANSTOETTER OF SHOOK HARDY & BACON. FINAL TEST SCORE: 150 (OUT OF 150 POSSIBLE).
More than 130 original contestants and 90 days to raise their fitness levels in 15 categories of health metrics, rated on scales of 1 to 10.
When you get done crunching all the numbers, perfection comes down to two people: Scott Kashman, chief executive officer at St. Joseph Medical Center, and Mark Anstoetter, a lawyer with Shook Hardy & Bacon. They alone scored at the top of every health metric used to calculate winners in the inaugural Fittest Execs Challenge. Their scores of 150 topped out, or in other words, were “off the charts” when comparing such detailed health measurements as body mass index, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, aerobic capacity and more.
How’d they do it? Well, as both demonstrated, it helps if you start the competition in that scoring neighborhood: Kashman’s initial score of 144 wasn’t far behind Anstoetter’s 147.
“When I started, I was running three days a week with a day of swimming and weights,” Kashman said. He added another day of swimming and weights, along with a day or two of cycling, most of that on a trainer through the winter.
“Working out has been part of my routine for a long time. Adding the cycling and additional swimming into my workouts continued to give me the appreciation of pushing me beyond my comfort zone.”
When this thing started in October, nobody had a shorter road to 150 than Anstoetter: His initial test score of 147 led the early field. When your health metrics are that good, how do you raise them? “A combination of weight training, cardio and diet,” he said.
Almost as important: The motivation he derived from being on a team of highly competitive Shook Hardy & Bacon attorneys, as well as the encouragement from above with the corporate support. That’s key, because the drive to attain maximum personal fitness is one that often comes from within.
That’s what set the Fittest Execs Challenge apart. “It was great doing this as part of a team,” Kashman said. “We had the chance to encourage each other and encouraged friendly pressure to do well.
“The best thing about the program,” he said, “was hearing several people join in the competition just to help promote healthy living. It also became a fun competition with other teams.”
Anstoetter said it also laid the foundation for what’s to come: The program, he said, “certainly served as a boost to that energy and ramped up my commitment to health and wellness.”
FITTEST MAN OVER 50. WINNER: TED HIGGINS OF METRO MED TEAM NO. 2. FINAL TEST SCORE: 148.
Ted Higgins is a surgeon—and a busy one. Fitting workouts into his schedule can be tough, but for the past 20 years, he’s found a shortcut to better health by taking the long way to get around the sprawl of Research Medical Center: “I haven’t used the elevator in 20 years,” Higgins said. “I always take the stairs.”
A built-in calorie burner like that positioned him well for the Fittest Execs program; he began the competition with a highly respectable initial score of 138. He supplemented the stairwork with tennis at least twice a week, did a little jogging and added in—with encouragement from his wife—yoga workouts. And he scored big on an oft-overlooked component of fitness in this competition, flexibility, by nearly tripling his score in that metric. “Flexibility was a big issue with me,” he said.
At 60, he had at least eight years on the next-youngest member of Metro Med’s Team No. 2. But the 10-point pop he produced on his own health score played no small role in their claiming the crown of the Fittest Team.
“I was asked by my friends to join, and I wanted to help,” Higgins said. “You’ve got to help the team.”
FITTEST WOMAN UNDER 50. WINNER: DOROTHY COBB OF THE ATHLETIC REHABILITATION CENTER. FINAL TEST SCORE: 148.
Dorothy Cobb scored near perfect in her Fittest Execs final health assessment, something you might expect of the director of educational development for the Athletic Rehabilitation Center. “We are a healthy work force company,” Cobb said. “Wellness is a part of our company culture. We all live it, promote it and help others achieve it.”
Her own motivation for entering the competition, she said, was simple: “To continue to improve my own health and wellness overall.” Mission accomplished. A body/core strengthening regimen, supplemented with yoga, increased overall activity, healthier eating and an uptake in water produced a 9-point improvement in her health assessment, leaving her just two points shy of perfection.
What she takes from the Fittest Execs Challenge, she said, is important, given the timing of the program this year—right through the holidays. “It is the time of year that people tend to gain the most weight and be the most inactive,” Cobb said. “To be creative to fit exercise into a busy time of year and to think about how to balance my nutrition and still enjoy the holiday season was a good lesson for me.”
Perhaps as important, she’s figured out how to crack the exercise/time disconnect that plagues so many Americans, and says she plans to make it part of her life from here out: “It has helped me achieve my goals without being tied to a gym, and it fits my schedule.”
FITTEST WOMAN OVER 50. WINNER: GRETE PHILLIPS OF HOLMES MURPHY & ASSOCIATES. FINAL TEST SCORE: 142.
Heading into this competition, Grete Phillips was no couch potato: She racked up an impressive 138 in her initial fitness assessment. But she sold out on this program, with an intense fitness regimen—running six days a week, lifting weights three days a week and fencing three days—and fine-tuning her eating habits.
Her final score was not a high-percentage increase, but given her starting point, it would have been tough to go much higher. An account manager for Holmes Murphy and Associates, the insurance brokerage office in Overland Park, Kan., Phillips says organizational support was a key to her own improved performance.
“Holmes Murphy has always encouraged a healthy lifestyle, and has seen that in its own health-care costs,” Phillips said. “Because of the program it offers to its employees, Holmes Murphy has not seen an increase in its own health-insurance premiums in two years.”
The best part of the competition? “Learning better ways to eat healthier,” Phillips said. “This reaffirms my commitment to my exercise program, but I also will commit to better eating.” 