We Love President Of Equinox, Sarah Robb O’Hagan, And Her Awesome View On Body Image.

Talk to Sarah Robb O’Hagan for five minutes, and you are definitely inspired to get moving. The President of the popular Equinox fitness chain believes in the links between exercise and confidence, and beauty and strength. Not surprisingly, she’s also a tri-athlete. But Robb O’Hagan wasn’t always so confident and fitness was a part of her journey to get there. Here Robb O’Hagan talks about how she learned to love her strength, why group fitness rocks, and why the latest trend in health is about mindfulness, not exercise.

The importance of loving your body

I am not a small person. I’m not a petite person. I don’t look like the standard that I was exposed to growing up of what was considered beautiful. I was always tall, always athletic. I would always look around, at the other girls around me, and feel like I was a giant. Honestly, I was so self-conscious because of that. I knew I didn’t conform to what the industry would consider beautiful. Now that I’m older and I understand, I always look to teenage girls and wish they could understand what I now appreciate so much. Having a physicality and the ability that a healthy body has, is such a blessing, and so beautiful in so many ways. It isn’t about fitting into size zero skinny jeans. It’s about how at every shape and size, people can be beautiful and that comes from within. If you just get your head around that, then somehow you get very good at blocking out the noise in terms of society’s perspective of what’s beautiful.

Regeneration, what it means, why it matters

The big area in health that is really starting to boom is about mindfulness and meditation. It goes hand in hand with this idea of regeneration. If you keep working out six or seven days a week, and you’re not giving your body the time to recover, you’re not getting the best out of your body. Exercise is only one piece of a healthy life, but you also need regeneration, like sleep and mindfulness. I was one of those classic Type A people, getting by on five to six hours of sleep a night. Once you get informed about sleep and understand that your body needs seven to eight hours, it’s incredible how different you feel. You see how much more productive you can be, how much sharper your mind is. The benefits are so huge.

Why fitness variety is key

I have always been someone who works out every day. I learned what it really takes to maximize the results of my own body. But I was doing the same things over and over. I am a big runner. So I was sort of like Forest Gump, I would run and run and run. One of the things I learned from being at Equinox, was that I needed to change it up. Now that I’m balancing different types of exercise I am noticing incredible results. My body feels different. I get injured less. I have more endurance.

The latest trends in fitness

I see a trend towards teammate training classes that involve people working together as a group. At Equinox we have a really cool class called Shockwave. You’re actually in little groups doing exercises, competing in a time-based format. I also think technology like FitBits are giving so many people basic awareness about their fitness and sleep. You think, OK I only walked so many steps today, I really should walk to the train instead of get in a cab. We just launched a new app to aggregate the data off the device.