A Shoe Executive’s TRX Routine

A Shoe Executive’s TRX Routine

    • Blake Mycoskie used to tease his girlfriend, Heather, that her personal-training sessions seemed more about “girl time” than actual exercise. So she challenged him to join her and her trainer, Joselynne Boschen, for a circuit-style workout.

“I’ve never been so sore in my life,” he recalls. Mr. Mycoskie, 37, is the founder of Toms, a Marina del Rey, Calif., company that sells shoes and sunglasses and donates a pair of shoes to an impoverished child for every pair sold and part of the profit for each pair of sunglasses to an effort to restore the eyesight of people in developing countries.

Mr. Mycoskie says he often struggled to find time for a workout and to be with Heather, who is now his wife. “After that joint personal-training session a year and a half ago, I thought, ‘Hey, this is another way to see more of my girlfriend,’ ” he says. They married last year and now share a trainer three times a week.

The sessions use medicine balls, free weights, bands, ladders and the TRX Suspension Trainer, which is a pair of suspension straps that can be put almost anywhere, using body weight as resistance. Though Mr. Mycoskie went to the gym regularly, he says he wasn’t used to working out so many small stabilizing muscles and at such a nonstop pace.

He estimates he travels half the year for work. In March, Mr. Mycoskie launched Toms Roasting Co., with the mission to provide clean water to developing communities with each purchase of Toms coffee. This past year, he spent time in Ethiopia, Rwanda and Peru researching his new coffee venture. When he travels, he packs a jump rope, running sneakers and his TRX. “I had kids in Ethiopia running out of their mud huts looking at me like I was crazy doing push-ups from the TRX, which was suspended from a tree,” he recalls.

A Shoe Executive’s TRX Routine

The Workout
At home in Venice, Calif., Mr. Mycoskie and his wife share a personal trainer at Alpha Venice studio three mornings a week. They start with lower body exercises such as squat hops using the TRX, or lunges. Upper-body work might include biceps curls, triceps dips, and push-ups with the TRX and then crunches with the medicine ball. The exercises change each session. “Sometimes they want to work on improving their golf game, and sometimes it’s just a good old fashion sweat session for all around toning and cardio endurance,” says Ms. Boschen.

Mr. Mycoskie plays golf and polo so Ms. Boschen gives him core exercises with a medicine ball to help improve his golf club and mallet swings.

He says he tries to run for at least an hour three times a week. He frequently bikes to work, which takes about 30 minutes. Two to three times a month, he rides a bike path from Venice to Malibu and back, which takes about an hour. “The entire path is along the beach and has gorgeous views,” he says.

Mr. Mycoskie met his wife at a surf shop in Montauk, N.Y., three years ago, and they enjoy vacations that revolve around surfing and yoga.

The Diet
Mr. Mycoskie starts his day with a protein shake or a fresh-squeezed juice. He has an indulgent weekend brunch that might include pancakes or an egg frittata.

Lunch is his main meal of the day and is almost always takeout food eaten during a meeting. “We have a series of five places we get lunch brought in from,” he says. The most popular is a sushi spot as well as a salad restaurant and Chipotle.

He and his wife are renovating their home so they eat out most evenings, typically fish and vegetable dishes. “We’re both busy so at the end of the day, we don’t want to spend an hour cooking,” he says.

When he travels, he says he may eat Clif bars for three meals a day.

A Shoe Executive’s TRX Routine

The Gear & Cost
Mr. Mycoskie has several pairs of Nike NKE +1.01% Free running sneakers and buys Salomon trail running sneakers. He got a Shinola bicycle, which he uses to commute to work, as a wedding gift from the company’s founder. For long rides, he uses a Litespeed bicycle, which costs around $2,000. He and his wife spend about $1,000 a month on personal-training fees.

The Playlist
Mr. Mycoskie says he listens to music about 50% of the time he works out, choosing a station on Pandora based on his mood. Other times, he uses his iPhone to voice record ideas. “When I run, I can let my mind wander and I actually come up with a lot of ideas,” he says.

By Jen Murphy: A Shoe Executive’s TRX Routine