At the crack of dawn every Friday, Gilad Janklowicz would stand on a platform, leading 5,000 Israeli troops through a workout.

A fitness officer in the Israeli military in the 1970s, Janklowicz used his experience as a world-class track-and-field athlete to whip a whole military base into shape.

"Interestingly, what I do now on television, I was doing then," he said.

The hard-body athlete never intended to be a television fitness trainer. As a high school decathlete, his eyes were set on representing Israel in the Olympic Games.

In high school, he was already breaking records in sprints, shot put and the high jump. In his early 20s, he broke the national decathlon record, making him one of Israel's hopefuls for the 1980 Olympics.

"The reason I came to the United States was the strong athletic programs in the colleges. There was not much assistance from (Israel), the conditions were poor and the training wasn't that great. You had to fight your way up all the way," he said.

Janklowicz enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles as a film student and began training with some of America's top track stars. While he was something of a track hero in Israel, Janklowicz struggled just to keep up in the U.S.

"I really pushed myself hard. Although I won the national championship in Israel, I was really not ready to compete with Olympians here. They were on a higher level than I was," he said.

The pushing and overexertion soon caught up with him. When he went back to Israel in 1977 to defend his national title, Janklowicz partially tore his Achilles tendon in the 400-meter, forcing him to drop out of competition. The injury kept him off the track for more than two years.

"My lifelong dream was to make it to the Olympics. I basically ate that every day. When that happened, of course, I had to re-evaluate everything. All of a sudden, I had a lot of time on my hands," he said.

He helped pioneer the group fitness industry in the U.S. — which was practically nonexistent at the time — while continuing to study at UCLA's film school.

"We started a fitness club in L.A. and began the whole group exercise principle. Before then, it was just gyms. Then it developed into the Jane Fonda fitness facilities, and that gave it the big push. From there, it just started snowballing."

Janklowicz's group workouts — a blend of martial arts, aerobics, stretching and circuit training — drew high-profile clients, including Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Looking back, Janklowicz said he has no regret.

"I made sweet of sour. The fact that I was sidetracked from my childhood dream brought about a different dream that I fulfilled unexpectedly. It's not like I said to myself in school, I'm going to have a television show on FitTV. It came about without trying," he said.

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.