Life Time Fitness' Akradi: $2.6 milliion

Bahram Akradi, chairman and CEO Total compensation: $2,618,359 for the year ended Dec. 31, 2008

Salary: $0

Bonus: $0

Other compensation: $225,859

Exercised stock options: $417,375

Value realized on vesting shares: $1,975,125

Total return to shareholders: 73.8 percent

Akradi, the founder of Life Time, was able to exercise stock options in 2008 and some restricted shares did vest, but his total compensation of $2.6 million was down from $4.6 million in 2007.

Akradi's no salary/no bonus 2008 compensation plan has been scrapped. In 2009 Akradi will get a base salary of $750,000 and be eligible for a target annual bonus of $750,000; long-term incentives have yet to be worked out.

Akradi's new salary is less than his salary in 2007, which was more than $900,000. The executive management team also requested that their compensation plans not be increased in 2009.

The company's sliding share price also triggered a number of margin calls in 2008 that forced Akradi to sell hundreds of thousands of shares in October and November. Later in November a Los Angeles investment partnership, Green Equity Investors, assembled a 9 percent stake in Life Time Fitness, and pushed the company to look for new ways to increase the value of the company including going private or selling itself. Akradi holds about 1.9 million shares, or 4.7 percent.