At 60 years old, business leader Peter Coyiuto is more than fit. He can hoist himself up for six pull-ups on the chin bar, swim several laps of the difficult butterfly stroke, and pump 150 lbs of iron on the bench press.
To him, age is a number and not a baggage. There’s no excuse for anyone not to get into shape and keep it up for life. Exercise gives him a sense of purpose.
Since his youth, he’s always been active in sports. He balances his duties as president and CEO of the First Life Financial Co. with fitness routines such as running, swimming, weight resistance and golf.
“In exercise, you need variety to avoid monotony. Every sport has its own muscle specialty,” he says. Coyiuto cites that golf develops core and upper body strength; running strengthens the legs; and swimming provides a total workout as the entire body moves against the resistance of water.
Coyiuto cultivated his fitness habit in his youth. In high school, he was captain of the La Salle varsity basketball team and was active in the swimming and track and field teams.
He recalls that while studying at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, the coach of the basketball team was impressed with Coyiuto’s athletic achievements, including his participation in the varsity league, the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
“When he saw that I was under 6 feet, that was another story,” says Coyiuto, who stands 5’11”. Instead, he engaged in running around the campus for cardiovascular health.
Interval workout
Today, he runs around the village with triathletes and fellow runners and exchanges notes or takes to the running track at the Manila Polo Club.
“There are two types of running: One is where you run continuously at a certain pace and you can still talk. The other level is intensified,” he says.
To challenge himself, he gets into an interval workout, which are short, intense runs followed by an equal time for recovery. Unlike triathletes who do a classic set of 12 tempo runs, Coyiuto squeezes a minimum of four sets to fit his busy schedule.
“I’d be happy to do six minutes per kilometer,” he says.
He has joined only one marathon in his life and today participates in short fun runs that stretch from 5 to 10 km.
“One day, I thought I nearly died. I joined a half-marathon and my heart pumped at 160,” he says. His driver had jumped over the barricade to hand him a towel and juice at the end of the finish line, when “Boom! Suddenly, the world turned upside down.”
Coyiuto kept his composure as he wiped himself and got his drink. He collapsed as soon as he reached home. “I was lying down in the living room for six hours,” he recalls.
Doing research, he learned that the blood vessels in the legs expand to hold increased blood as a result of the intense activity. Ideally, the leg muscles should work like a second heart, pushing more blood back to the heart.
But when Coyiuto reached the finish line, the blood from his legs suddenly decreased and thereby didn’t supply enough blood to the brain. The lesson: Keep walking even after crossing over the finish line.
Butterfly stroke
To preserve muscle strength, Coyiuto goes to the gym. He can perform two sets of 10 repetitions of the bench press with 150 lbs of weights. And while not very many can hoist their body weight on the chin bar, Coyiuto, despite his age, displays the power of his back and the biceps by doing pull-ups.
Coyiuto is proud of his butterfly stroke, a swimming style in which the body moves like a dolphin undulating in the waters. It’s the most difficult because it requires strong arms and shoulders to rotate against the water, and core work to lift the body out of the water.
To maintain his flexibility and endurance, he swims an average of 3 km a week on his 25-meter lap pool.
Thirty years ago, he took up golf for business reasons. For a weekly round at Manila Golf Club, he has a double-digit handicap. Coyiuto joins eight tournaments a year to make new friends. “Besides going to a restaurant, attending weddings or joining the Rotary Club, golf is a good way to expand your network. Other sports won’t give you the chance. You can’t talk while you’re swimming, running or playing basketball. If you’re in the gym and you talk too much, then you haven’t accomplished anything. How much of your time was spent in exercise?”
Then he says: “In golf, there are 18 holes. In hole No. 1, you ask: ‘What’s your name?’ After asking about school, family, business, vacation, dining, revenues and competitors, by the 18th hole, you get the cell phone number.”
Travel must-haves
Coyiuto finds great pleasure in getting fit on trips. His travel must-haves are a pair of rubber shoes, shorts and an exercise shirt. He finds it boring to work out in hotel gyms.
“You see the same CNN on the TV screen,” he says. “In New York, I would take the subway and run back to the hotel. I’d rather run in the streets so you could enjoy the landmarks and the scenery.”
He enjoys golfing in the Gold Coast, Brisbane, because of the variety of the courses. When he goes to Australia in the fall, the turf is dewy. He loves the soft rustling sound of the golf ball on the wet grass. Since the ball rolls more slowly, he has to exert more effort in hitting.
Ultimately, Coyiuto feels younger than his years. “I eat anything. That’s why I exercise to compensate for the indulgences,” he says in jest.
It’s the endorphins from working out that keep him motivated. He then quotes Friedrich Nietzsche: “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”