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Most jet-lagged travelers might be inclined to hit the sack after a long flight. Not Societe Generale general manager Jacques Bouhet. He visits the gym, and once his muscles are back in tone, he sits for a spell in the sun when he can. The routine, he says, resets his biological clock and thwarts jet lag. Only then is he ready to do business.
Given the stamina that global finance demands, it's no surprise that Bouhet isn't alone in his commitment to peripatetic fitness. Burns Fry vice chairman Donald Johnson takes a run as soon as he checks into a hotel, after practicing a an-like flight routine of eating little, drinking a lot (but only water), meditating and sleeping. His Goldman, Sachs & Co. counterpart, Robert Hormats, whose morning jogs through Beijing in the early 1970s while he was National Security Council economic adviser are legendary among the Chinese, also tries to squeeze exercise into his navel schedule.
If the edge gained from looking and feeling great isn't reason enough to embark on a portable fitness regimen, the American Heart Association lists the lack of regular aerobic exercise as a major cause of heart problems. Yet finding a place and the time to exercise while on the road can itself be an exertion.
Bouhet and many other fitness-minded financiers go out of their Way to stay at hotels that have top-notch gym facilities or are close to jogging tracks. And they block exercise into their navel itineraries. Helpfully, at least 3,800 American hotels now have fitness centers, and these upmarket gymnasiums are proliferating at deluxe hotels abroad. The centers started cropping up at hotels about a decade ago and "went through the roof in 1988," according to Matthew Bradbury, a vice president of Fitness Co., which manages Hilton, Westin, Hyatt, Vista and other hotel executive-fitness centers.
Hotels that have no fitness amenities may arrange guest privileges at a nearby club. Dallas's Mansion on Turtle Creek chauffeurs guests to the huge Centrem Gym. Guests at Chicago's Fairmont Hotel can use the 114,000-square-foot Sporting Club, which adjoins the hotel and features a seven-story wall for mountaineering, basketball courts and a scuba pool.
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Granted, some of the fitness centers may consist of little more than...