IT’S PERHAPS A little on the nose to say Tim Robards is in ‘peak’ physical condition as he scales the summit of a mountain. But right now, the 42-year-old’s much-celebrated physique is bestriding the summit of Bukansan National Park in Seoul, South Korea, like a colossus, his arms extended in a panoramic embrace of this city of 10 million souls.
I’m with Robards, a four-time MH cover guy, admiring the stupendous views over this sprawling yet somehow intimately enchanting metropolis, as we radiate in the glow of endorphins that comes with negotiating a tight gradient and gnarly terrain under a quilt of verdant foliage, in a little under two hours.
Along the way, we’ve chatted about work, family and relationships, the conversation moving from the trivial – our ever-climbing step count, my spiking heart rate – to how Neighbours is filmed, the anxiety of the audition process, to more meaty fare, like past relationships and future dreams. Without wanting to overanalyse it too much, we’ve bonded in ways I doubt we’d manage if we were to simply sit down and chat in a cafe. But united in a sense of accomplishment, we’ve discovered a little more about each other, while raising a sweat and creating a memory that I’m confident will live long for both of us. While ostensibly, we’re just two dudes who’ve gone on a hike together, I’d like to think that it in the crucible of sweat and torching of calories, we’ve grown.
“I’ve seen this thing going around on Instagram saying that men need two male bonding things per week to be healthy,” says Robards, when I ask him about the benefits of combining exercise with socialising in the cab to the airport after an action-packed three days in the ‘Land of the Morning Calm’. “I think you do. You get that piece of being able to talk shit. You might talk about serious stuff, you might just talk about rubbish, but you’re talking and having a laugh and connecting.”

Tim Robards at lululemon’s #Togetherwegrow event in Seoul, South Korea
The climb has underscored one of the central themes to emerge from lululemon’s 2024 Global Wellbeing Report and the brand’s campaign message: #Togetherwegrow, which is the focus of a two-day wellbeing festival that has brought Robards and I here to Seoul. As part of the “Together We Grow” challenge, we’ve been tasked with unlocking 1 million minutes of movement classes for lululemon’s APAC community by posting a photo or video engaging in physical activity with friends on Instagram stories. We both do our part over the course of the two days, though we find the target has already been achieved by the time we arrive at the bubble-shaped activation forum in front of COEX in the city’s Gangnam district (yes, that Gangnam). No matter, we are essentially stockpiling more minutes for everyone – you’re welcome.
This movement harvest is something I try to keep in mind as I struggle to keep my arms above my head for minutes on end as Aussie yogi, Leah Simmons, exhorts us to push through pain, in a morning mindfulness session. Not usually one for two-a-days – do I look like a Hollywood beefcake trying to cut for a role? – I’m somewhat anxious about book-ending the day with a gruelling HIIT session with AARMY founder, group exercise guru and lululemon global ambassador Akin Akman. This is a guy who seems to be powered by his own energy source and his high-octane workouts are calorie-culling massacres – his side planks while dribbling a tennis ball are possibly a human rights violation, yet deep in the pain cave the power of seeing others suffer alongside me, lifts me up to a mystical plane that Akman has been bellowing about in his mic for a good 45 minutes: “a place beyond your best”.

Akin Akman leads a class at lululemon’s #Togetherwegrow wellness event in Seoul, South Korea
Seriously though, the social component of group workouts is emerging as a critical third plank in exercise’s nexus of holistic benefits. It may even be an antidote to one of the GWR’s central findings: the pressure many of us feel to maintain our health and fitness, leading to what’s been termed ‘wellness burnout’.
The 2024 lululemon GWR found that although wellbeing remains a top priority for most Australians – 74 per cent of us are setting boundaries to maintain our health – Australia’s wellbeing score has stagnated at 66. Nearly two-thirds of respondents in the survey said they are struggling with societal demands to maintain wellbeing, leading to 55 per cent of Australians experiencing significant levels of stress and burnout.
“Most people talk about physical and mental health as being the two parts of wellbeing or holistic health, but early on, we knew social was a big part of it,” says Gareth Pope, lululemon’s senior vice president, Asia Pacific, of the findings of the fourth iteration of the report. “We’re social beings at our core. So, we always had that third pillar. But then, working with the scientists in setting up the survey and trying to establish this baseline data set, we really split it into those three different areas. I’d say the real call-out of this report was the importance of that social element, for both physical and mental health.”
For Robards, incorporating socialising into exercise has become a priority over the past few years, representing a recuperative outlet away from the responsibilities of work and family, rather than the solitary escape it used to be. “I used to do a lot more solo training in a gym, doing my own thing,” he says. “But the last few years I’ve been doing more group training. Coming out of Covid, I just really wanted to connect more with people. The great thing when you train in a group, is you push each other. A little bit of ego is good. If I’m next to someone on the SkiErg, I’ll look over, see what cals they’re burning and what I’m at and you give each other a bit of a race and then at the end you give each other a high five and say, ‘Thanks for pushing me’. The place I train at now has got saunas and ice baths and you can sit in there and have a chat after and meet new people. I really enjoy it.”

Instagram: @mrtimrobards
The previous day Robards had taken me and a couple of others through a hotel gym workout that would have been quite rote and one-dimensional if we’d done it solo – 20 minutes of chin-ups and push-ups, anyone? Sure enough, though, within that group dynamic, the workout not only became competitive but fostered a sense of camaraderie. We joked about how our legs were going to feel the next day and threw out a few other gym-floor chestnuts, such as, “starting to feel the burn”, “that last set was spicy”. Bottomline: it was fun.
Robards has found a similar dynamic in his new hobby of jiu-jitsu. “That’s something that’s a little bit nerve wracking,” he says. “You go into battle with each other. You go through pain and torment, but you come out the other end together and you give your opponent a little a little handshake slap and then you have a laugh and a chat afterwards.”
Does he relate to wellness burnout, I had asked, as we began to shuttle our way down some tricky terrain on the other side of Bukansan’s summit. “True wellness only gives you energy,” he says. “It doesn’t burn you out. It’s more the commercialisation of wellness and the advertising that’s thrown at us of all the latest little hacks and the super foods we should be eating. All this information about ‘the next best thing’ or ‘you should be doing this not that’, all that can be quite overwhelming.”
While he’s conscious of these influences, as someone who’s been held up as the embodiment of the fit Aussie guy (yes, by Men’s Health), the former model-and-chiropractor-cum-actor feels his own unique pressure to maintain his sculpted rig.
“I do feel pressure because I’m in the public eye as a fitness guy,” he says. “I feel pressure to maintain a certain ability and physique, especially as I get older. And especially because young guys are coming up and they’re fitter and have got better physiques and all those things.”
As someone who’s been on Neighbours and in the public eye on reality TV shows like SAS Australia, he also has to deal with media scrutiny. “I was at the beach the other day and there’s a paparazzi taking photos,” he says. “I was just going for a dip and you walk out of the water and you’re like, I might have to hold the tummy in a bit more. It definitely does get harder as you get older. So, I feel the pressure on my side of things. I can only imagine what other people feel when they open up social media these days. It’s just full of ripped dudes. So, when you’re constantly seeing that, you start to feel like, ‘Oh, that’s the norm’.”

lululemon’s #Togetherwegrow event in Seoul, South Korea
I ask him what role exercise plays in his life nowadays, compared to when he first hit the weight room as a scrawny 13-year–old. While working out has always had a mental dimension, he says, his purpose has changed.
“Back then it was a mixture of I want to build something to be confident, to be able to play football and it was a real building mentality,” he says. “To look good for girls and become a man kind of thing. When I started, I was 13 and no one else was training. So that was my little thing that I had and I was very inspired by Men’s Health (thanks Tim!). It was one of those things that I had that no one else had and so that became my little superpower. It still is a little bit.”
One of the reasons exercise is so important to him, Robards says, is because it helps cultivate discipline. “When you can get up and show up and do that and then look back and acknowledge what you’ve done, it’s a great thing,” he says. “I see so many people that don’t do that and then wonder why they feel shit. If they can just start, it’s ticking something off that list that helps builds self-esteem.”
While acknowledging that the focus of his movement these days is centred more on stress relief – “work stress, financial stress, naughty kid stress”, it’s important, the father of two says, to always be moving forward.
“I’m always trying to be a little bit better,” he says. “I never go to the gym and just go through the motions. I’ll always try something different, something new.”
It’s a mentality that’s been challenged by injuries. Oftentimes when I’ve interviewed Robards over the past 15 or so years, he’s been recovering from an injury of some sort, perhaps from striving to push himself as hard as he possibly can. But he’s never allowed that to eat into his determination to get the most out of himself.
“Over the years, I’ve had a few pretty big injuries that could have knocked me down and got me depressed because I can’t do things I used to, but I also learned to like the challenge of shifting the goalposts,” he says. “I think a lot of the time depression starts with not meeting expectations of yourself and those of other people and it can get you down. Sometimes I have to pivot and do things differently just because my body will give out in certain ways. But luckily, on most things, I’m still able to find a way to move forward.”
As he disappears over a ridge and I struggle to keep up on our hike, I’d have to say he’s not lying on that one. He’s making me dig deeper. So, I push on and when we hit the summit, it’s together. The moment is ours.
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Tim Robards’ hotel gym workout
Only got 20 minutes in a hotel gym before dinner or a night out? Here’s Robards’ go-to workout
- Chin-ups X 5
- Push-ups X 5
Repeat on the minute for 20 minutes.
“It’s not a big set but there’s a lot of volume,” says Robards. “By the end you’ve done 100 chin-ups and 100 push-ups, which is far more than if you’ve just done 3 sets of 10.”
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Tim Robards On Turning 40 And Never Giving Up: I’m Working My Butt Off