History
The RCAF asked Orban to develop a fitness program for their pilots, a third of whom were not considered fit to fly at the time. The plan was innovative in two respects. Firstly, it did not require access to specialized equipment. Many RCAF pilots were located in remote bases in northern Canada, with no access to gymnasium 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.
While performing research in Illinois, Orban had noticed that, when testing oxygen intake, 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 to improving fitness than the amount of time spent on it. This aspect of the plan drew a negative reaction from others in the field but the 5BX program proved its worth in the three years of testing that the RCAF performed before releasing the program.
Twenty-three million copies of the 5BX booklet were sold to the public. It became popular around the world and was translated into thirteen languages. Orban, creating the program as a public servant, received no additional income from the success of the plan.
The exercises are no longer performed by the service as of 2008, and are considered unnecessarily hazardous in part because they are unsupervised. Many exercise physiologists consider the sit-up in the higher levels to be capable of causing spinal injury, and, therefore, unsuitable for an unsupervised program. Children under the age of 17 were at risk of heart failure and lung weakness due to the intensity of the exercises and therefore were not required or advised to demonstrate the 5BX for any public school. The sit-up exercise can be replaced with the more modern crunch.
John Walker's book The Hacker's Diet contains a simplified version, that is claimed to be suitable for everyone. The original 5BX programme has also been updated by three Australian fitness trainers under the title The Goodbye Couch! Len Deighton's novel Only When I Larf contains a reference to this program.
In a CBC Radio interview in 1970, George Burns remarked that he was devoted to the RCAF exercise plan and performed the exercises every morning. Burns lived to become a centenarian.
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