ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

She trains businessmen and helps women get a bigger bum (fudi in Swiss German).

Successful personal trainer

Cindy Landolt’s muscular body is the result of years of discipline. And a visit to the plastic surgeon. We meet her at the gym, where she gets bankers and doctors alike sweating.

This morning, Cindy Landolt also had four scrambled eggs and a packet of Darvida biscuits for breakfast. Today, she will eat chicken, rice and vegetables again – and drink a protein shake before going to bed. For her, food is fuel that helps her perform – there is no room for enjoyment.

Cindy Landolt is wearing black, as she does every day, leggings and a tight-fitting top. She buys 30 of each item at a time: shirts and trousers. As simple as possible. She doesn’t want to have to think about food or clothing; her focus is on building muscle – her own and that of her customers.

Her muscular bulk is the result of 20 years of hard work and discipline. Her motivation: ‘I wanted to be strong, both physically and mentally.’ She loves to push herself to the limit during training: add another kilo, do one more repetition. The result is an impressive appearance: 1.79 m tall, 82 kg, fat percentage 14% (the normal value for women is between 20 and 30%). Landolt takes a tape measure: ‘Biceps 32, thighs 59.6 cm.’

At her most extreme look in 2020, she had four kilos more muscle mass, with a fat percentage of 10%, she says in a light voice. But she still has ‘a perfect six-pack and brutally defined legs’. She still trains at least four times a week for around 75 minutes at a time. These days she mainly works on her bum, which she wants to be on a par with her breasts to get the proportions right: 110-70-110.

“My body is proof of what you can achieve’

She sees her body as an asset and a calling card: 18 years ago, she set up her own personal training business, and for the last ten years she has owned her own gym, Centurion Club, in the Seefeld district of Zurich. There are rows of barbells of all sizes on the wall, silver with a gold and black club logo. In the bright, airy room with a gallery, there are custom-made weight machines, but also some that Landolt has taken over from other fitness studios – leftovers from the Corona period.

Her business, on the other hand, is doing very well, better than ever. Cindy Landolt is considered the most successful personal trainer in Switzerland. She now employs two people, and has long since been unable to look after her clients on her own.

She sees herself as more than just a trainer, as a lifestyle coach, as a close companion over weeks. As an inspiration: ‘My body is proof of what you can achieve with discipline and stamina.’ She is convinced that her age helps her: ‘When it comes to success, a 50-year-old businessman is more likely to listen to me than a 25-year-old.’

She just turned 40, and she celebrated her birthday in Monaco with a glass of bubbly and a fine red wine – a little over the top for her. But she also fell asleep with a protein shake in Monaco, of course, and she was the first one at the hotel gym the next morning, of course, to get in her workout.

Membership of the Centurion Club costs 26,000 Swiss francs a year, including two personal training sessions per week. However, most customers book private lessons, individually tailored training and nutrition plans. A session costs 250 Swiss francs – personal training programmes for 25,000 to 30,000 Swiss francs a year are not uncommon, says Landolt. Cindy Landolt does not want to say how much she earns in total. But she says she can afford a great lifestyle, expensive hotels, powerful cars.

Her clients include ‘top people from a wide range of industries’, mainly business people, but also women with their own beauty clinics or doctors, including a ‘leading heart surgeon’. They are all under enormous pressure and need to make the best use of their limited time. There are roughly as many women as men, and most are between 45 and 50 years old.

What is her style, how does she motivate them, how does she drive her customers? ‘In the minds of many, I’m probably the perfect dominatrix, drilling and shouting,’ she says and laughs. In reality, however, people are surprised by how gentle she seems: ‘I’m a sweetheart, I have a pleasant voice, I often hear that.’

The art is to respond to the needs of each individual customer: the ‘number crunchers from the financial sector’ would also ask about ‘facts and figures’ at the gym. They always want to know by what percentage they have increased their performance. The typical banker needs to be led with a firm hand, he says: ‘Don’t ask me what I want, tell me what I have to do!’

With surgeons, on the other hand, she has to be careful: after a long day at the operating table, they don’t need ‘Techno music and squats’. Instead, they need gentle movements, stretching and mobilisation. Of course, it is the customer who chooses the music and volume: ‘Most want something invigorating,’ while the professor couple or the opera singer prefer silence.

Landolt doesn’t talk about her private life. She doesn’t do home stories. She is only interested in the body – but there are no taboos there.

First women wanted a bulging bum like Kim Kardashian, then Michelle Obama made defined biceps desirable in sleeveless dresses, and finally the female six-pack followed, presented by stars like Rita Ora. Which body part is in focus today? ‘Every woman wants a firm bum,’ says Cindy Landolt, adding that a full bottom, known as a Brazilian butt, is still ‘hugely popular’.

The same goes for a flat stomach. You can achieve an awful lot with your body, says Landolt, but an apple bottom or a six-pack takes months of hard work, ‘you have to live for it’. A firm fudi as the centre of your life? In any case, there is no room for other interests besides training and long, scheduled working days.

Despite Landolt’s muscular body, the first thing you notice is her ample bust. She is aware of this, but it’s ‘totally okay’. Landolt doesn’t talk about her private life, she doesn’t do home stories, she’s only interested in the body – but there are no taboos there. She had her breasts done in Miami in 2013, we read. She corrects, ‘Three years ago I had an upgrade,’ one kilo more each, that makes a total of four kilos of silicone. In cup size, a G or H – you can hardly call them cups anymore. Nevertheless, the new breasts are much more comfortable than the old ones.

Why go for such a big job? ‘Because I like it’ – and so do her followers. The first pair of breasts sent her social media following ‘almost skyrocketing’; the new pair have done the same. She has 1.5 million followers on social media, 97% of whom are men. This is hardly surprising: the muscle lady likes to show off her assets, highlighting her curves in the skimpiest of bikinis.

She will be showing off her body in even less material at the Photo Schweiz photography exhibition at the Kongresshaus in Zurich (7 to 11 February). She is particularly taken with the ‘artistically sensual, black-and-white photos’ of photographer Oleg Kushnir, ‘that’s also a facet of me.’ After all, always photographing herself would be boring.