Outstanding role model (over an entire lifetime) for entrepreneurs and managers
You know Jürgen Michael Schick as one of the foremost property experts in Germany, but I also know him on a personal level and as a friend. Through our friendship, I have come to understand that, aside from his expertise in property, his greatest passions in life are his family and sports.
Early to rise!
Schick dedicates approximately ten hours per week to training, which primarily consists of running around 80 kilometres. His main objective is to prepare for marathons – whether in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, New York, Boston, or Chicago. This commitment to training has been a consistent part of his life for the past 25 years. In addition to running, a few years ago he also incorporated strength training into his routine two to three times a week, plus yoga once or twice a week.
How does the family man and real estate entrepreneur find the time? He gets up early, like most successful people. This habit of early rising is common among successful individuals, as it allows him to begin exercising at 05:30 and transition seamlessly into his workday by 08:00.
I also train regularly and have been doing so for 47 years. My routine primarily consists of weight training four to six times a week, typically for no more than half an hour per session. In comparison to Schick, my training volume is significantly lower, averaging around three hours per week. And I don’t vary things up so much. For most of my life, I focused solely on weight training. I only recently started Kung Fu, which I practice for an hour at a time, twice a week.
90 minutes a week is also enough
People often ask me how I’ve managed to keep such a good figure all my life, even today at the age of 67. Doesn’t it take a lot of discipline? Yes and no. No, because I don’t need discipline for training. I enjoy it and I feel there’s something missing if I don’t do it. Yes, because I need discipline with my diet.
What is my secret? Efficiency. Over the years, I have learnt to train more and more efficiently, i.e. to achieve maximum results in the shortest amount of time. Today, I could maintain my figure with 45 minutes of training once or twice a week. The reason I go to the gym more often is not because I need to, but because I would otherwise be missing something.
Good news for anyone with limited time: You don’t have to spend hour after hour in the gym to get great results. What is essential, though, is learning how to train really efficiently. In all my years in the gym, I’ve seen thousands of people train, and at least 90 percent don’t train correctly. The movements are often done too sloppily and too quickly, the order of the exercises is not correct, they get distracted by talking, etc. And they almost always train for much longer than is actually necessary.
My new fitness course
I have now developed a fitness course aimed specifically at entrepreneurs and managers. I’ve teamed up with Lukas Müller, who used to be a natural bodybuilding champion and now also trains managers. What does natural bodybuilding mean? It means bodybuilding without anabolic steroids, testosterone “cures” or other doping agents. In 47 years of weight training, I myself have never taken any such substances – I would have seen that as cheating myself and an admission that I am incapable of developing a good figure naturally. Besides, my training should benefit my health and not harm it.
In our course, Lukas Müller explains how he used targeted training plans to regain 100% performance after a slipped disc injury. Together, we have created 67 short videos demonstrating proper exercise techniques. Journalist Alina Beyer conducts in-depth interviews with us on the principles of training and nutrition, with a focus on mental training as well. Despite the abundance of material (you can also print everything out), what we say is both easy to absorb and implement.
In 2022/23, I travelled to 30 countries in 20 months. Perhaps you also travel a lot? How can you still train and eat in such a way that you stay in shape? There are many fitness courses online, but this one is specifically aimed at managers with a limited time budget. Particularly people who value efficiency in their professional lives. The target group for this course includes, but is not limited to older people. There is no law of nature that at 40, 50, 60 or 70 your midsection gets fatter and your arms get thinner. I call this phenomenon “insect figure”, because insects have slender limbs and thick torsos. I hope I have piqued your interest. If you hurry, you may still be able to buy the course at a significantly reduced introductory price: www.zitelmann-fitness.de.