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When Jean-Robert Barbette was five, his father,
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Like all true athletes, he makes the While there is no such thing as a typical |
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| By the time he was a teenager, Jean-Robert was a gym teacher and massage therapist in St. Tropez in the summer,and in Courchevel during the ski season. And of course, he skied, monoskied, waterskied, and surfed, all the while building a body thatis its own work of art. Several years ago, on vacation from his job as strength trainer for the French junior ski team, Jean-Robert stopped off in Aspen the only American ski resort we knew anything about back in Courchevel -and found his Shangri-La. Here were these glorious mountains, this glorious snow,and people who really were dedicated to getting stronger, healthier, to ski, to play tennis, to live well, he says. In Europe there is nothing like this commitment. I had to come to Aspen. For his first two years here, Jean-Robert taught monoskiing and worked around the gym world while he worked on his English. A year ago he opened his One-To-One Personal Training Studio, a calm, high-tech environment of glass brick, mirror, chrome, and the best euipment - weights, treadmill, bike, and the like - in the Brand Building. Taking a fitness session with 30-year-old Jean-Robert in this pleasant space is not unlike taking a master class with Baryshnikov. Your own brand of music -rock, Bach, or opera - is already filling the air softly when you arrive, as tailored to your musical tastes as the session will be to your body. As he demonstrates the use of an eight-pound weight or a smooth pole for strengthening, Jean-Robert is almost balletic - supple and limber under a powerful physique. |
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| He has many exercises for hamstrings and calves, but recently he designed a new training technique for his friend C. Gottardo, an Argentine Olympic speed skier who needed dry-land training before Albertville. Jean-Robert balanced a teeter-totter board over a 2 x 4. Constantly jiggling the board to replicate the feel of the piste, he trained Claudio to hold an aerodynamic tuck on the board for two burning minutes at a time. In one corner of the studio rests a big leather punching bag, and it’s not used to train boxers. It’s for clients who arrive in a state of emotional stress, business stress, or anger. Jean-Robert ‘s eventual goal is to build his own gym that anyone can afford. My father gave me fitness, he says. I’d like to give it back to as many as I can. |
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