\n<\/p>\n
Fitness expert and former Olympian Les Mills has died at the age of 91, his family has said.<\/p>\n
The New Zealander first opened a gym in Auckland with his late wife Colleen in 1968, and it later became a nationwide chain. <\/p>\n
The Les Mills International brand is now known around the world for choreographed workouts set to music, like Body Pump and Body Combat.<\/p>\n
Mills, who competed in shot putt and discus at four Olympic Games, later served as mayor of Auckland. <\/p>\n
Mills’ son Phillip, who set up Les Mills International with partner Jackie on the back of his parents’ gyms, said he “achieved a huge amount in his life”. <\/p>\n
He added: “And the common thread throughout \u2013 whether in fitness, politics or family life \u2013 was that he always wanted to help others.<\/p>\n
“Dad was immensely strong, driven, and always cared deeply for the less advantaged.”<\/p>\n
He said that his father’s “spirit lives on in gym workouts around the world, continuing to help people fall in love with fitness”.<\/p>\n
Mills won five Commonwealth Games medals, including discus gold in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1966. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fitness expert and former Olympian Les Mills has died at the age of 91, his family has said. The New Zealander first opened a gym in Auckland with his late wife Colleen in 1968, and it later became a nationwide chain. The Les Mills International brand is now known around the world for choreographed workouts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11611],"tags":[1768,8482,701,2152,1764,16379,12691,21637],"class_list":["post-31450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spyballoon-global-news","tag-aged","tag-brand","tag-dies","tag-fitness","tag-founder","tag-les","tag-mills","tag-olympian"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/1218\/live\/8dbbe5f0-739c-11f1-8e1d-bbbb1017d210.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"SPYBALLOON GLOBAL NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Fitness expert and former Olympian Les Mills has died at the age of 91, his family has said. The New Zealander first opened a gym in Auckland with his late wife Colleen in 1968, and it later became a nationwide chain. The Les Mills International brand is now known around the world for choreographed workouts…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31452,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31450\/revisions\/31452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}