In the past 17 months, Mikael Maatta has come back from knee surgery and finally won a Kailua Night Doubles tennis championship after years of near-misses. His focus now is “not to get wiped off the court” in January’s Honolulu Challenger.
That trio, and a twist of fate when he went home to Sweden at Christmas, led him to Jarkko Kortelainen. The rest, as Maatta tells it, is fitness history.
The former Hawaii Pacific All-American, and doubles partner Jan Axel Tribler, qualified for the $50,000 USTA Circuit event by winning every stop on this year’s inaugural Triple Crown of Tennis. Both have been working full-time as financial analysts in Honolulu the past five years.
About 10 pounds overweight after his surgery and still sluggish, Maatta was looking for a “kick-start” when he went to the gym with friend Johan Brunstrom, who once reached the doubles round of 16 in the Australian Open.
Brunstrom was also coming off an injury. Maatta watched his friend’s workout with Kortelainen in Sweden with increasingly incredulous eyes.
“He was doing something completely different,” Maatta recalls. “Sweating like crazy just lifting small weights and a stick. I was used to lifting big weights and trying to build muscle. It got me very intrigued.”
The outgoing Maatta engaged Kortelainen in conversation. The Finnish “elite personal trainer,” who owns gyms in Europe, ultimately agreed to come to the Honolulu Club and use it as his “test market” in the U.S.
Maatta and the club convinced 75 people — about 30 percent women — to take the daily, hourlong “30 Day Top Shape Challenge” (topshapein30days.com). Kortelainen developed it in 2008 to prepare himself for a photo shoot.
It was designed to be accessible to anyone and the club opened it to nonmembers as well, offering classes at 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. The first level is mostly about breathing and form. In Level 2, participants learn to perform actions with their entire body. The third level ups the challenge, and at Level 4 all exercises are done on a balance board while focusing on keeping the core strong.
About two-thirds of the students stuck it out daily from Sept. 19 to Oct. 18. Some had remarkable results and some routine, but the ones who finished were apparently convinced that Kortelainen’s core approach had merit, and are now searching for successful maintenance programs.
What Kortelainen describes as “fusion functional” training is not new. Trainers have been teaching core conditioning to serious athletes for years. K.J. Choi was one of the first to popularize it on the PGA Tour. Each trainer has his own tweaks.
Kortelainen took it up after a hip injury derailed his professional basketball career in Europe. Unable to lift heavy weights, he began to study core fitness. That was 13 years ago.
His 60-minute class, augmented by 1,500- or 2,200-calorie-a-day nutrition guidelines, is filled with 90-second moves done on mats. Students often hold yoga bricks between their feet. Cardio is considered recovery time from moves done with sticks and hand weights, and ultimately on a balance board for those who are able.
The emphasis is on keeping the body in a straight line — no “duck feet,” swayback or hunched shoulders — and engaging abdominal muscles with all power originating from the core. Students are encouraged to focus on their posture every waking moment.
Proper breathing is vital. Kortelainen acknowledges it usually takes at least 30 days to synchronize effective breathing with new muscle movements.
Maatta, one of Hawaii’s best tennis players since he got here in 2003, is still working on that.
“I have not mastered the breathing yet, but I am on my way,” he says. “I train on it all the time, even when I sit in the car or in the office. I know I will get there, but it will take time.”
Maatta swears his shots “have more pop” and he can reach higher on his serves.
And those 10 extra pounds are long gone, as are 5 inches around his waist. Tao Miller says his cholesterol went from 271 to 188, with his triglyceride level also showing a dramatic drop. Ted Caisse lost 26 pounds the first 26 days.
“I was two cheeseburgers short of 300 pounds,” Caisse says. “At the beginning, I didn’t make it through one routine. I’ll be honest, I was ready to quit after Day 4. Some of the others in the class talked to me and they were encouraging. Then, by Day 10, I had lost 12 pounds.”
Kortelainen is already thinking about a return to Hawaii in May. Maatta will be on his own until then, but his 30 Day Challenge will get him through the Challenger.
“This is definitely going to be the basis for all my workouts from now on,” he says. “I am going to focus on strengthening my core as all power and energy comes from your core. … The workout is a base foundation for all athletes, including myself.”
