Bill Orban

William Robert Orban (21 April 1922 – 18 October 2003) was a Canadian public servant and academic. He was a "pioneer" in the field of physical fitness, best known for creating the 5BX and XBX programmes in the late 1950s. His parents were immigrants from Hungary. Orban played many sports at the Jesuit high school he attended. In 1941 he was offered a hockey scholarship to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he initially studied engineering.

In response to this brief he created the 5BX (5 Basic Exercises) plan for men and the XBX (10 Basic Exercise) plan for women. The popularity of the programs in many countries around the world helped to launch modern fitness culture. Orban, as a public servant, received no additional income from the success of the plan.

After his retirement, Orban developed 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.

Personal life and death With his wife, Virginia Krasiun, Orban had five sons, Bill, Jim, John, Jerry, and Danny and two daughters, Victoria and Patricia .

Orban died of prostate cancer and melanoma at age 81 in Ottawa.

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