Bill Orban

Who was Bill Orban?

William Robert Orban 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 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.