The Indian cricket team players are leading by example as far as fitness trends are concerned, encouraging others to follow suit, feels renowned fitness trainer Jag Chima.

“I have noticed that there are lot of cricket players who are following these trends and open businesses to encourage more people to use gyms to improve their fitness,” Jag Chima, CEO and co-founder, Physique Global and Kris Gethin Gyms, told IANS in an interview.

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“Fitness is extremely important in sports. The reason is that you can optimize your performance, endurance and also train to avoid injuries. For example, the cricket teams are now learning from international trends and training in the gym will definitely improve their performance.

“Hence most teams around the world who are performing well will have their teams train in gyms with specialized trainers, so that they can get better results,” he said.

Led by Virat Kohli, who takes a lot of pride in staying fit, the Indian team members currently taking part in the World Cup in Britain are fit unit and spend a lot of time in the gym.

Recently, the Indian team were forced to workout in private gyms at UK as the ones in the team hotels were not adequate.

About Indian attitudes towards fitness, Chima said: “The average Indian is much more fitness conscious today than they were a year ago and much more than they were 5 years ago. The reason for this is, a huge influx of movie stars are now showing fitter physiques on the big screen which is inspiring a lot of youth.

“Also there are now many gyms that are providing education across the country, helping people to live a fitter and healthier lifestyle, which is great. Because India does have one of the highest populations in the world who are obese. Also the highest population of children who are obese. Therefore it’s very important for us to spread education so that people can live a fitter and healthier lifestyle.”

Chima is the founder of The London Group, a diversified conglomerate with extensive operations in UK, India and other parts of the world, including companies in property consultancy and development, realty, lifestyle brands, fitness education, talent management and health clubs.

“So far we have trained approximately 6,000 trainers across the country. And we are bringing more education specific for each demographics so that we can help to grow the industry. We are also planning of setting up between 100-150 gyms across India for all demographics, right from basic gyms to high end gyms over the next seven to eight years,” he said about his plans for India.

Chima also shared his plans of helping the lesser lights from smaller cities who cannot afford high-end gym facilities.

“We have realized that there is a huge demand from tier 3, tier 4 cities and small towns. However, some of these people are not able to afford the ticket price of premium clubs in tier 1 and tier 2 cities.

“Therefore, we have designed smaller floor plates gyms which we feel will be able to service these people and also help them to become fitter and healthier.”