

Reporter Survives Private Workout with ‘Mr. Muscle’

Gunnar Peterson (pictured), the one-time talent agency assistant who has remade himself as a personal trainer to top athletes and Hollywood A-listers, normally charges an amount that “is not unadjacent to $400” for a one-hour workout. But in the case of Guy Adams, west coast correspondent for London’s The Independent, he was happy to waive the fee.

Although Adams says he was sworn to secrecy with regards to the address of this sweaty journalistic assignment, it would seem likely many paparazzi already know where people like Halle Berry, Pete Sampras, and Angeline Jolie spend their non-house call personal trainer dollars. The second-floor Beverly Hills studio also boasts a hilarious signed picture from horse-riding client Sylvester Stallone. The inscription reads: “Never trust anything that can shit and run at the same time!” Writes Adams:

We pummel muscle groups I never knew existed. Peterson escorts me from familiar pieces of kit, such as exercise bikes, to completely alien ones, including a moving staircase which speeds up the faster I run, and a rotating platform designed to improve balance.

In between drills, I push a weighted wheelbarrow from one end of the room to the other, or swing along a set of monkey bars… At one point he proffers a pink bucket, which properly exhausted clients are invited to throw up in.

Peterson tells Adams that the hardest worker he has ever trained is the aforementioned Sampras. The reporter also spoke to Peterson’s assistant and romantic partner Caralyn, whose job duties include weeding out gym applicants that are interested only in meeting other more famous members.

[Photo Credit: Robert Yager]

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