Stand as you read this: Now sit, now stand

By ROBERT N. JENKINS
Published November 28, 2006

I punched Jack La Lanne - but he pulled my beard first.

By the time we parted, he had called me a sex god, so I guess everything is okay between us.

He's an original: a mix of the genuine article and old-style promoter, spicing his rapid recitation of achievements with corny jokes.

La Lanne is a bantam rooster - not much more than 5 feet tall, but the poster child for energy barely contained.

Now 92, La Lanne is the American guru of physical fitness. At 17, he created in the back yard of his Berkeley, Calif., home what might have been the nation's first commercial gym.

By 1936 and still deep in the Depression, he had a 10,000-square-foot facility that drew everyone from firefighters and police officers toning up to pass department physicals to high school boys who were either too fat or too thin.

But he rode to fame beyond the San Francisco area after World War II. His vehicle: the new medium of television. Combining messages on exercise, nutrition and motivation, he was on from 1951 until 1985.

He also performed record feats of strength and endurance, such as towing 70 boats carrying 70 people, as he swam - while handcuffed - on his 70th birthday.

Invited to fill time during an early bay area TV show, he impressed the female host by doing push-ups for the full 90 minutes. Jack and Elaine have now been married 52 years.

The couple were in town this month to publicize the SilverSneakers program of group exercises for older adults, at the LifeStyles Family Fitness centers. La Lanne had barely walked into the manager's office at the St. Petersburg center when he tugged on my beard and asked, "Does this thing tickle?"

That, and his joke later about his sitting across from "a sex god," is La Lanne's disarming, you're-my-pal approach. As for my "punching" him, he insisted that I hit him in the stomach. I hesitated, then finally let go with a slow-speed push against his abdomen.

It was flat and solid - which made it embarrassing when he then poked a finger into my chest and the finger seemed to keep sinking in.

Here is a look at his philosophy of life and why he says it is never too late to start exercising.

Why is exercising so important to us?

To make money . . . No, no. The only way you hurt the body is, don't use it.

Inactivity is the killer. That's why you have so many incapacitated old people, sitting in their chair longing for the good old days. My God - they're just wasting their life away.

Forget the good old days . . . Today's the day, this is the moment . . . and you're never too old.

Why are you so enthusiastic about exercise?

It saved my life. I was a weak, miserable kid . . . a little miserable twerp at the age of 15, a full-blown "sugarholic." I attended a health lecture and that man said that if you obeyed nature's laws, you could be born again.

I wanted to be born again. I wanted to have a body that the girls would like, and I wanted everybody to like me . . . I wanted to be an athlete.

What was it all about? The foods you eat, even more than nutrition . . . Next day, I quit all white flour, white sugar products, joined the Berkeley (Calif.) YMCA, started working out and . . . within 10 days, I was a different human. I was born again.

If something saved your life, would you be enthusiastic about it? If I hadn't gone to that lecture, I wouldn't be here today.

How did you go from your own change to teaching others?

I got Gray's Anatomy (of the Human Body) when I was in high school. All the other kids would be studying chemistry, and I learned about all the muscles and bones in the body . . . I used myself as a guinea pig, this weak, miserable kid. My God, it was working wonders on me.

Everybody that came to me, I would give them a program just for their needs, and every 30 days I'd change their program completely.

Do you still exercise every day?

I work out seven days a week . . . an hour and a half with the weights, another half hour doing pool exercises. When I'm on the road, I'd exercise in my hotel room, but most of the hotels have gyms now.

If the hotel doesn't have a gym, are there exercises people can do in their rooms?

You're sitting in your chair; now stand up. No, don't use your hands.

Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Now come down to just about a half-inch above the chair.

Now, jump up, now down. Do it slow, slow.

Got the picture?

I got the picture. So did my knees.

Now, sit in the chair. Then bring your legs up and straight out up, then cross one over the other.

If you have an armchair, lift yourself up only using your arms. Feel it in the back of your arms?

And one more thing you can do. You sit in a chair, put your hands on the desk. Now push up . . . now go all the way down - faster, double fast, faster, quick! Move it, move it!

What do you do to relax, other than exercise?

I watch television. I like the news, I like some of the old shows . . . Of course, some of these shows that they have on now, you know, it's not my cup of tea.

But I like Dancing With the Stars.

Robert N. Jenkins can be reached at (727) 893-8496 or bjenkins@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 28, 2006, 09:32:14]