The Intense Fitness Routines of High-Powered CEOs

At 6 A.m. sharp, Strauss Zelnick’s posse assembles at a building on an anonymous block in Midtown Manhattan. It’s late May, and we’re going to see Rafique “Flex” Cabral, an instructor Zelnick and his crew first met when Cabral was teaching at Equinox Fitness. This morning, Zelnick is paying Flex for his tyranny, meted out in short bursts of jumps, squats, and pushups.

On paper, a session of “high-intensity interval training”—HIIT to the people who love it—seems basic and, frankly, easy. You do a bunch of different exercises for a few seconds at a time, almost none of which requires any equipment other than your body. Flex, a former U.S. Marine, shouts instructions, and we scramble to various stations in the gym, partner up, and then separate. There is no real rest in the 45-minute session.