Bill Orban

For the hockey player, see Bill Orban (ice hockey).

William Robert Orban (21 April 1922 – 18 October 2003) was a Canadian athlete, scientist and academic. He was a pioneer in the field of physical fitness, best known for creating the 5BX programme in the late 1950s.

Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Orban played many sports at the Jesuit high school he attended, where he also did well academically. In 1941 he was offered a hockey scholarship to attend the University of California, Berkeley. He initially studied engineering but soon switched to the physical education programme, becoming the first Canadian to study it at that university. He was greatly interested in the subject and in 1953 went on to study a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois.

After completing his studies he chose to return to Canada, despite offers of employment from several American universities. He took a position at the Department of National Defence in 1956 and was tasked to develop a fitness programme for Royal Canadian Air Force pilots, a third of whom were not considered fit to fly.

In response to this brief he created the 5BX (5 Basic Exercises) plan. The plan was innovative in two respects. Firstly, it did not require access to specialised equipment. Many Air Force pilots were located in remote bases in northern Canada, with no access to these facilities, so it was important to offer a means of keeping fit without their use. Secondly, the plan only required 11 minutes per day to be spent on the exercises. Orban had noticed when testing oxygen intake in Illinois that long periods of exercise did not necessarily lead to significant improvement. This led him to the conclusion that the intensity of exercise was more important that the amount of time spent on it. This aspect of the plan drew a negative reaction from others in the field but the 5BX programme proved its worth. 23 million copies of the booklet were sold to the Canadian public and it was popular around the world, being translated into 13 languages. Orban, as a public servant, received no additional income from the success of the plan.

In 1958 the University of Saskatchewan employed Orban to take the position of dean at its new Physical Education programme. While there he initiated the Saskatchewan Growth Study - a pioneering study of physical development in boys aged 7 to 17. In 1966 he returned to Ottawa to become a professor of the University's Human Kinetics department and became dean of that department in 1968, a position he occupied until 1976. He continued as a professor in Kinanthropology until his retirement in 1987.

Even after his retirement he remained active, exercising daily until shortly before his death at age 81 in Ottawa. He also continued his academic work, developing the Physical Energetics Systems of Equations (PESE). This would allow individuals to calculate exactly how fit they could potentially be and what level of exercise would allow them to achieve this. He hoped that it would allow training times for athletes to be cut and help people recovering from illnesses to become fitter. Orban died from cancer shortly before his research was published.