Anna Paquin and Matt Damon have both name-checked Clay Burwell to the press on several occasions. He is not a producer, agent or Hollywood maven. He is a New York City-based personal trainer. He has single-handedly kept Sookie Stackhouse (Paquin’s character in the HBO series True Blood) physically fit enough to deal with her vampire boyfriend, and Jason Bourne (Damon in the Bourne film trilogy) quick and nimble enough to stay on the lam as an international mercenary.
Burwell runs the gym called High Performance with his wife, Elizabeth Hendrix. They opened on West 14th Street three years ago. While serving in the military in the late 1990s, Clay mastered the somewhat notorious physical fitness regimens of the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne boot camp, so it is no wonder he went on to be named one of the nation’s top 100 personal trainers by Men’s Journal. Among the vast landscape of Manhattan gyms and trainers, Burwell stands out as a no-nonsense taskmaster who knows the fine line between fun and fitness can occasionally be blurred. Fortunately, New York Family Sports’ interview with Burwell was conducted over the phone, so he couldn’t see the jelly donut on my desk and get all Full Metal Jacket on my lazy behind.
You’ve worked with some high-profile celebrity types, so how do you change your approach when you are training someone under 18?
Well, it is a little bit different. My approach for training children or youths or young people is all situation-dependent. It’s never a cookie-cutter approach. Every person is different, every person’s needs are different. It’s a matter of assessing where their weaknesses are and what their deficiencies are and trying to work on that. When it comes to kids, most often we want to work on their dexterity and their coordination and balance. It’s kind of like an advanced version of recess, so to speak. They’re in a very developmental stage, they want to strike while the iron is hot. Of course you do strength training, of course you do endurance training, but you’ve got to keep it kind of fun because they’re kids and they want to have a good time. If they’re not having fun, they’re not going to do it because they’d rather be playing X-Box. You’ve got to make the workout more fun than X-Box.
You had mentioned before that you were looking to set up some group sessions with your younger clients. Has that come to pass?
Yeah, I’m actually in the works with it right now. I’ve got some interest going on with a kid’s jiu-jitsu class. I’ve also got females that are in a swimming program at one of the schools here in New York, so I’m trying to get some synergy between them as far as times, so we should be rolling here within the next six weeks.
Is that an advantage, working with a group instead of one-on-one?
Is there an advantage? It depends on the person, again, because some people respond well to being in a group and some people don’t. Some people need the attention or just don’t like the kind of semi-competitive atmosphere of working in a small group.
Child obesity has been in the headlines again. What is your basic advice when you are talking to a kid who is overweight?
It always depends on the kid, so you’ve got to feel them out. Some kids respond well to almost a fear-based approach where it’s like, “Look, if you don’t get into shape, here’s what you’re going to look like when you’re 40. Here’s what you’re going to look like when you’re 50. If you make it to 60, here’s the path that you are on, what are you going to do to change that?” You kind of want to inspire them to get on the correct path of life as far as diet, exercise, activity level. You’ve got to teach them it is not a painful place to be. You’ve got to teach them that the way I eat is probably fine with them. I could take a group of kids out and we could eat like four meals a day and they’d probably think it was tasty and delicious and would have no problem doing it. It’s not that hard to eat healthy, and it’s a lot of fun to be healthy and your life is going to be substantially better if you are.
You started working out pretty young, at 13, right?
Yeah. I was formally lifting weights and on a weight-lifting program when I was 13 years old. But I certainly was very active as a kid.
I bet you were never known as the “chubby” kid.
Never. We weren’t allowed to be in the house until dinnertime. Literally, my mother would lock us out of the house and if we were thirsty we had to drink out of the garden hose.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in New Jersey and in North Carolina. Me and my family are from the south. We moved up to
New Jersey when I was in the 3rd grade.
When you got into the Army, did you know
you would do so well on the fitness end of it?
You know
what? I was so scared of failing that I had over prepared for it. I used
to run seven miles to work, work an eight- or ninehour day all summer
detailing cars, then I’d run back home again another seven miles.
Obviously the first time I did it, I didn’t make it two blocks from my
house. Running is a very different thing. I was also boxing, kickboxing
and doing jiu-jitsu. So while I was studying martial arts, I had all the
energy in the world for punching heavy bags and sparring and stuff, but
running was a very different thing. So I started out performing very
badly, making it two blocks from my house, out of breath and having to
walk a little. I’ll never forget the time I got my first runner’s high
and I completed that full seven miles. I will absolutely never forget
it. I came home, it was like a muggy, hot summer night and I banged the
door open to the house and collapsed on the floor and I had just
completed my first full trip home without stopping. By the time I had
left for boot camp, I did well. I never got called out, I never dropped
out of a run the entire time I was in the Army.
Are you seeing more
kids coming into High Performance these days?
Definitely.
Now more than ever. You see a lot of parents who are trying to take
control of it themselves, which is good.
New York City kids have a lot more
options in terms of gyms than, say, kids growing up out in the country.
Yeah, well, school
systems are better. When I was in school we’d work out in our high
school gym after school. It was open for us to work out until 4 or 4:30
in the afternoon. We had a coach who was a certified strength
conditioning specialist and certainly overqualified and he would hang
out and coach everybody through their workout. He had a big whiteboard
up on the wall and he would track everyone’s bench-press and squats and
whatever if you wanted to be involved in that. Certainly some unsafe
practices by today’s standards, but a least we had guidance and good
equipment.
Do
you see kids getting more specific about which sport they’re going to
do now?
Well,
I do see some of that, but I still see some multi-sport athletes. I
guess some kids realize that you’re only going to go to school on one
scholarship, so you want to get really, really good at it.
Did I read that you
have a Mixed Martial Arts fighting career in your future?
I’ve
kind of had to put that on hold. I still study martial arts, but I
don’t think that I’m going to be doing any MMA, not any formal fights at
least. I’m feeling a little bit old, and I just had elbow surgery so
I’m kind of happy my elbows are doing okay and I don’t want to mess them
up. I’ve been boxing since I was 15. I started in the Police Athletic
League in New Jersey, I’ve fought in the Golden Gloves twice and I’ve
been doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu for four years. I really like the
Brazilian jiu-jitsu—it’s an excellent workout and it doesn’t really
leave too many permanent injuries. I’m just happy to be where I’m at
doing jiu-jitsu.
Are
you working with any new celebrities?
Not really. Pretty much the
same crew.
Being
in Manhattan, you must get pretty good access to those people?
Yeah, but
it’s not Hollywood, you know what I mean? You think just because it’s
New York that a lot of celebrities live here, but really it is certainly
not Hollywood. Everyone lives in Hollywood.
You’ve been out there?
Yeah, but its not for me. I
like it, don’t get me wrong. I love it out there with the wonderful
weather and it is a beautiful place, but I couldn’t imagine living in
L.A. Sitting in my car all day is not for me.
Any new programs coming up at High Performance that younger clients should know about? Yeah, I am definitely interested in getting some summer boot camp classes going. So any parents who want to get their kids out of the house for an hour or two a few times a week, feel free to contact me so I can get them started. It should be a good program, get kids motivated about fitness and have a good time while they’re out it.
You’ve been to boot camp, so you know how to do
this.
Yeah,
but it is certainly nothing like the one I went through. I intend to
make it fun. Get them in shape and give them a good introduction to
exercise.
abby100
