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Sandy Leo has a certain air about her. And it has less to do with her

statuesque appearance – the piercing grey-blue eyes, blonde mane and, let’s face it, a lithe body which, at her respectable age of 51, would be many woman’s envy.

No, it’s her laissez-faire attitude, the energetic spring in her step, a demeanour that oozes confidence yet reveals a slight hint of vulnerability. The sense I get when chatting to Sandy is that of an old soul living in a youthful body and healthy mind.

But appearances can be deceiving. By looking at her, you wouldn’t know that it took Sandy a lifetime to find the perfect body-mind balance. A pioneer of fitness since she entered the gym stage in the early 80s (she calls herself the Jane Fonda of New Zealand), this woman is no stranger to the consequences that 28 years of teaching high-energy group fitness classes 25 times a week can have.

And she has the war scars to show for it: broken bones, blown quads, a ruptured Achilles, ruptured shoulder tendon, full hip replacement, you name it, Sandy’s suffered it.

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Sandy Leo – fitter and stronger in her 50s than many men half her age – has learnt the hard way that listening to your body is crucial to optimum wellbeing. The wellness coach chats to Anya Kussler about why women often look, feel and perform better by taking a less-is-more approach to fitness, especially as they age

Forward on a few years and this busy mother of three is one of the strongest, most functional and healthily balanced women you’ll ever meet – one who, on several occasions, has given a burly rugby player a run for their muscles.

Sandy’s secret to optimum wellbeing, she says, is the fact that she lives by the following principles at least 80 percent of the time:

1. Creating a strong, functional body (she uses Pilates a lot for this); avoiding lengthy, intense workout sessions as these can push the adrenal glands into overdrive, causing the body to shut down and becoming diseased.

2. Living a clean, holistic lifestyle in accordance with Paul Chek’s philosophy (see sidebar), which involves eating clean, organic foods in accordance with your metabolic makeup, as these balance and energise you.

3. Eliminating toxins that prevent your cells from functioning properly from your lifestyle habits, for example by using chemical-free washing liquid and drinking purified water.

4. Taking time out for yourself to relax and recharge – if you aren’t kind to yourself and don’t have energy, you cannot be good to anyone else.

Fit, fab & Functional

By Anya Kussler

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AGEING WELL

Following is the story of Sandy’s incredible life journey, a story she shared with me in order to spare other women the trauma of embarking on a long, rocky road of recovery in order to find balance, health and happiness.

In The begInnIngSandy was born as the youngest of four children, each exactly 2 and 1/2 years apart, into a fit, active family. Her Dad had a background in rugby, while her mum was a top ice skater, golfer and swimmer (which she taught at Sandy’s primary school, to her swim-phobic daughter’s dismay).

With Mum and Dad as her role models (except for the swimming part, which she detests to this day), it is hardly surprising that Sandy spent the majority of her formative years focusing on all things sporty. Whilst at intermediate school in Christchurch, she took up gymnastics and represented Canterbury in athletics in the 100 and 200 metres, as well as high and long jump (it seems quite fitting that her nickname back then was ‘Pin’).

During her high school years at Northcote College on Auckland’s North Shore, Sandy focused her attention on netball. “And I seemed to spend more time exploring the bush than being in class,” she laughs.

goodbye offIce, heLLo gymFollowing high school, in 1980, Sandy took up a job as a legal secretary in Takapuna, Auckland. And then fate intervened: “One day, I heard music across the road from our office and that’s when I first got introduced to Jazzergetics (the precursor to what is today known as Body Attack). It was all bare feet, wooden floors and a lot of burpees and star jumps back then!”

Not satisfied by just participating, Sandy soon set her sights on becoming a Jazzergetics instructor and started attending Les Mills co-founder Colleen Mills’ all-weekend training sessions. “They were super tough,” Sandy remembers. As she became qualified to teach programmes, Sandy soon spent as much time training and instructing, as she did in her full-time job at the office. “Come 5 o’clock, I had to ‘just go’ and my boss couldn’t hold me back!”

Sandy has many fond, humorous

memories of her inaugural group fitness years, especially when the first Les Mills club started up in Takapuna in the mid 80s. “The customers at McDonalds downstairs complained that their burgers were jumping around on the tables, because our music was too loud and thumping. So noise control started monitoring our classes, and we weren’t allowed to teach Body Attack at certain times of the day – it was hilarious!”

mArrIAge, moTherhood And A mInd for buSIneSSIn 1986, on holiday in Hawaii after spending a year in the States with her first husband, Sandy fell pregnant with her first child, Elisha, now 26 and married with two children. Not that ‘being with child’ prompted her to slow down in the slightest. “I was working full-time as a PA and kept teaching group fitness classes until I was eight months pregnant, which was quite normal in those days. To this day, Elisha cannot stand aerobic music with beats or rollercoasters,” Sandy adds. “She puts it down to being in my tummy while teaching!”

After giving birth to Elisha, Sandy decided not to go back to her pre-preggie job as a PA but instead upped the ante by taking on group fitness classes at Les Mills Auckland, as well as working at the club’s reception part time and becoming one of their first personal trainers.

In 1994, Sandy married Samoan-born Pete Leo, Les Mills Auckland’s famous ‘top Body Jam boy’, and they had their two boys. There’s Troy, now 17, (he works out at Les Mills Takapuna most days and and teaches his mates correct form and eating habits!) and Moses, 15, who enjoys going to his mum’s Pilates class after rugby training.

After Moses was born, Sandy went on to teaching group fitness classes and taking on the role as aerobics coordinator at Glenfield Leisure Centre, which was closer to home and her children. During her 15 years at this club, she increased the two weekly group fitness classes to 72, and also developed many of their current kids and seniors programmes. One in particular is a low-impact, core-strenghtening whole-body programme for seniors, which later, alongside fitness guru Emma Barry, evolved into the Les Mills programme Body Vive.

The PAuL cheK connecTIon World-renowned holistic wellness practitioner Paul Chek has had a huge impact on Sandy’s life, and where she is at today. In order to understand this, let’s back track a little…

During her time in the States, back in 1985, Sandy was experiencing major back problems due to the many hours of fitness teaching she’d been doing. More specifically, she was suffering from degeneration of the lower part of the spine and major nerve impingement, which left her with

About PilAtesPilates focuses on building strength, improving stability and flexibility, and helping to prevent injury through a series of controlled body-mind movements. The primary focus is on awareness of the spine, proper breathing, core strength and flexibility; the ultimate goal is to create a balanced body that is strong and supple, featuring a flat functional stomach, balanced alignment and strength in legs and strong supportive back.

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immense pain. The only way she could move at all, and bear the pain, was by wearing a back brace and dosing up on Valium.

“Then I met Art Mollen, who had a rehab clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, and was well ahead of his time. He told me to stop taking Valium, take off my brace and simply use what I’ve got. That’s when the lights went on and I realised that it was up to me to fix myself.”

For three weeks, Sandy went through agony, focusing on building her core strength and the biomechanics of good postural habits, in particular strengthening the long muscles alongside the spine and lower abdominals. This led to her becoming passionate about practising Pilates: “I had no choice but to have a strong core. It is paramount for me to be functional and pain free.”

When Sandy met Paul Chek at a scientific back training seminar in NZ in 1999, his philosophy just made sense and it confirmed to her that she was on the right track. “He taught me

that to go hard is not beneficial as we age – you also have to follow what he calls ‘Dr Quiet’ (getting quality sleep and proper rest.

“As we age and stress increases we have to learn to taper down our workouts to keep the stress hormone cortisol under control. Elevated cortisol levels can have a huge impact on our bodies and major organs, eventually allowing disease to develop and making us prone to injuries.”

Sandy says adopting Paul’s holistic principles (see above) provided her with a great exit from the stage after she’d just filmed BodyVive – whilst having major hip pain from overuse.

SAndy’S currenT mISSIon Since ‘exiting the fitness stage’ and bringing her own body back to balance, Sandy has been working as a functional fitness and wellness coach and consultant who educates and empowers people, and in particular women, to live functional, balanced and healthy lives. She achieves this by teaching a combination of Pilates interfused with the Chek philosophy pertaining to the yin and yang of life.

In 2005, after training as a Chek Holistic Nutritional & Lifestyle Coach Level11, a Chek Exercise Coach and a Chek Golf Biomechanic, Pilates Master trainer, Sandy set up her own studio, Gravitate Health & Fitness Ltd. She utilises the versatility of EFI’s (USA) Total Body Training Systems known as Gravity and Powertowers, which enables her to do full-strength, functional, stability and Pilates workouts. (Sandy is South Pacific’s Elite Master Trainer in all four Gravity disciplines: Post-rehab, PT, Pilates and Group).

So what is the Gravity system and why is it superior to conventional Pilates equipment (reformers, which create resistance through springs)? “Gravity Pilates incorporates cables, a one-pulley system and an incline plane setting,” explains Sandy. “It is superior in that it allows you to work with better posture than a reformer especially when dealing with men as the incline can be used for assistance and/or resistance. You can also load it with up to 300kgs of weight, which means you can strength train with the same intensity as at the gym.”

Sandy adds that the one-pulley system also allows for a unilateral upper body workout and as most people are imbalanced in this area, it enables you to do functional workouts, especially for clients in post-rehab.

Sandy’s typical clients include people with bad posture, and back, shoulder, knee or neck pain – “I sometimes end up with whole families. I bring people into their optimum power zone with everything they do – exercise, hydration, food… What I teach is that you have an obligation to your body, to have an individual assessment of your body and biomechanics and then never look back to generic ways.”

Sandy explains that our bone, muscles and cells change every year: “You have the opportunity to feed them, get your alignment right and improve your bone density by working with Mother Nature. Working harder means working less – being aware of your breathing, hydration, nutrition, gentle exercise and posture.”

PAul Chek’s wellbeing PhilosoPhy in A nutshellHighly regarded worldwide, Paul Chek is a forerunner in the field of holistic health (finding and treating the root of a problem by treating the body as a whole system) and corrective and high-performance exercise.

• Yin and Yang: According to Paul, balancing the forces of Yin (sleep, nutrition and hydration) with those of Yang (movement, thinking and breathing) is key to optimum wellbeing.

• To break this concept down further, there are four ideas that express the essentials of human life – it’s what Paul calls the ‘Principle of the Four Doctors’. These four doctors are Dr Quiet (sleep, introspection, ‘me time’ etc); Dr Diet (food, hydration, metabolic eating, satiation); Dr Happiness (creativity, learning, core values, emotional intelligence…) and Dr Movement (functionality, transformation, flexibility, expression…). When the four doctors are in harmony, it’s when we experience a sense of peace, joy and inner purpose in life.

“Mother Nature is a bitch and if you don’t

listen to your own body, she’ll take you out. Sometimes it’s

wise not to go harder but to go quieter”