My Workout Diary: Leo Robitschek
It’s hard enough running one award-winning bar, but imagine overseeing a veritable empire of acclaimed cocktail establishments around the country. Meet Leo Robitschek, the talented bar director and a managing partner of the Make It Nice group, which includes world-famous restaurant Eleven Madison Park as well as the NoMad hotels in New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. (As if he needed more things to do, the group has plans to open another restaurant in Manhattan and one in London.) In 2014, the NoMad New York bar won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program and has garnered too many Tales of the Cocktail Spirits Awards to list here.
Robitschek put together a small collection of cocktails recipes to accompany the NoMad Cookbook that came out several years ago. His drinks book, now called the NoMad Cocktail Book, just came out as a standalone volume this week.
In between all of these commitments and duties, Robitschek somehow finds time to work out. While he’s still recovering from tearing his tricep last year, he has signed to do next June’s seven-day AIDS/LifeCycle bike ride that travels from San Francisco to L.A. and is beginning to train for the event now.
He agreed to keep a workout diary for me after getting home from a recent whirlwind trip to London. “Thankfully, I am not too affected by jet lag,” he said, “but the week definitely took a lot out of me.”
Monday
8:00 AM I definitely woke up a bit groggy, but decided to start my road to training for the AIDS/LifeCycle. I decided to Citi Bike my way to my first ever Flywheel class with Holly at the Flatiron location. I use to do quite a bit of spinning, but have fallen off in the last year. The class was a bit harder than I expected, as I was getting my body reacquainted with riding bikes. I still managed to get 18 miles in.
3:00 PM Met with Claude Hillel, my physical therapist, at Sky Health. We worked on rehabilitating my right tricep. We also worked on my right hip, which has been causing me issues lately.
9:30 PM Rode a Citi Bike home, and stopped by Katana Kitten for a quick Highball. (Balance!)
Tuesday
7:00 AM Rode a Citi Bike to the gym.
7:30 AM Warmed up for a bit by doing kettlebell carries and squats, followed by 10 minutes of intervals on the StairMaster. Stretched and worked on my triceps stretches and exercises.
9:00 AM Met Ramel at Sky Health for a personal training session. We worked on circuit training, focusing on keeping my heart rate up for weight loss, as well as stability groundwork for my triceps. I was feeling a bit rough from the long flight and yesterday’s workout.
10:00 PM Rode Citi Bike home from work.
Wednesday
8:30 AM Walked to Flywheel in Flatiron, stopped to get a coffee on the way in.
9:30 AM Took a Flywheel class. The class felt a lot better today, but I still found it more difficult than I remembered. I was able to ride half a mile longer today than Monday.
3:00 PM Went to physical therapy with Claude again. We did BFR (blood flow restriction) today. The idea is that you restrict blood flow with tourniquets while you exercise, which is supposed to help build more muscular strength. It is honestly the weirdest feeling, in that you feel insanely tired while lifting less weight. The whole process made me very nauseous, which I am told is a normal reaction.
8:30 PM I went to see Edd Lee, the magician at Manhattan Sports Acupuncture. He did a mixture of traditional acupuncture and deep tissue needling. We focused mostly on my hip and quads due to the pain and tightness I’ve been having. I literally felt like I was hit by a truck when we finished.
Thursday
7:00 AM Met my trainer Ramel at Sky Health. I felt better today, and my quads felt a touch painful, but significantly looser. We circuit trained again with very little rest, while focusing on upper body and functional movements that help open my hips.
Friday
Today, is moving day, so I rode a bike from the West Village to my storage unit in Harlem to meet the movers. I skipped the gym, but spent from 8:00 AM until 9:00 PM moving, cleaning and unpacking.
Saturday
I had planned on riding 20 miles along the Hudson, but woke up quite hungover from all the moving/wine drinking. Instead, I choose to continue to unpack the apartment.
While moving, I found my old jump rope. I decided to do a quick jump rope and squat circuit. The idea was to jump for three minutes, and do 20 squats, then rest for a minute and start the set all over again. I ended up doing 3 sets of 45 seconds of the rope, with 10 squats in between.
Sunday
8:00 AM Went to gym where I did a quick 20-minute ride on the stationary bike and my physical therapy exercises followed by stretching.
12:00 PM I joined my 6-year-old godson for a few games of bowling before I needed to head to the airport to catch a flight to L.A. where we have the NoMad Los Angeles. I am happy to say that I was able to win all three games.
My Workout Diary features the fitness regiments of bartenders, chefs, distillers, and brand ambassadors.
Interview has been condensed and edited.
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