Confessions of a Former Couch Potato | Healthy Aging Series: S11 E16
It took 13 hours, but I finished my second Rim to River to Rim of the Grand Canyon.
When I finished, the first thing I did was call my wife and tell her that I would never, ever, under no circumstances, ever do it again.
“I know you Bear,” she replied, “Once you recover, and you get a good night’s sleep, eat a good breakfast, and put the picture on Facebook, you’ll start planning something like this again.”
“Not this time.”
That evening, I picked up a fish sandwich and Diet Coke, forced the sandwich down, drank half of my Diet Coke, took a shower and went to bed.
On our way to our room at the Squire Inn in Tusayan, Arizona, I asked my son, who joined me on this quest, “Do you know what they call this, what we just did?” “Fun?” He responded.
I actually believe he had fun. I said, “Well, yes, but they also call this a Feat of Strength.”
BTW: It was not fun. Challenging, yes, fun, no.
It was hot. Eight hours from the top and I seriously did not think I would make it. The first time I did a Rim to River to Rim was eight years ago when I was 60, and I did it in 10 hours. This time it took 13. We started in the dark and finished in the dark.
One of my fitness heroes has been Jack LaLanne. One of my earliest fitness memories is watching LaLanne on our black-and-white TV doing mostly bodyweight exercises. Instead of weights he used books.
I know you’ll question my honesty, but I remember following along with his exercises when I was an 11 or 12-year-old. For reals!
Lack LaLanne the Former Couch Potato
He died when he was 96 years old. I’ll always remember reading about his Feat of Strength. Truly, he was one of the early founders of modern fitness, a true Fitness Revolutionary.
This season I’m writing about Aging with an Attitude, and I’ve picked out several fitness revolutionaries, people who change the way we look at Fitness, and of course how that has impacted our attitudes as we age.
Here is what people said about him in his obituary (Wikipedia):
LaLanne (pronounced lah-LAYN’) credited a sudden interest in fitness with transforming his life as a teen, and he worked tirelessly over the next eight decades to transform others’ lives, too.
“The only way you can hurt the body is not use it,” LaLanne said. “Inactivity is the killer and remember, it’s never too late.”
His workout show was a television staple from the 1950s to the ’70s. LaLanne and his dog Happy encouraged kids to wake their mothers and drag them in front of the television set. He developed exercises that used no special equipment, just a chair and a towel.
He also founded a chain of fitness studios that bore his name and in recent years touted the value of raw fruit and vegetables as he helped market a machine called Jack LaLanne’s Power Juicer.
When he turned 43 in 1957, he performed more than 1,000 push-ups in 23 minutes on the “You Asked for It” television show. At 60, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco — handcuffed, shackled and towing a boat. Ten years later, he performed a similar feat in Long Beach harbor.
He maintained a youthful physique and joked in 2006 that “I can’t afford to die. It would wreck my image.”
“I never think of my age, never,” LaLanne said in 1990. “I could be 20 or 100. I never think about it, I’m just me. Look at Bob Hope, George Burns. They’re more productive than they’ve ever been in their whole lives right now.”
Fellow bodybuilder and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger credited LaLanne with taking exercise out of the gymnasium and into living rooms.
“He laid the groundwork for others to have exercise programs, and now it has bloomed from that black and white program into a very colorful enterprise,” Schwarzenegger said in 1990.
He said his own daily routine usually consisted of two hours of weightlifting and an hour in the swimming pool.
“It’s a lifestyle, it’s something you do the rest of your life,” LaLanne said. “How long are you going to keep breathing? How long do you keep eating? You just do it.”
He continues to inspire me. I will be 70 in 2026, and I am planning my Feats of Strength. I will not do the Rim to River to Rim in 2026!! But Maybe I’ll backpack down to Bright Angel Campground and stay a couple of nights.
But the ghost of Jack LaLanne haunts me as I write this and… No, I will not do another Rim to River to Rim. But I will be planning several moderate Feats of Strength during that year.
Jack LaLanne and the Fitness Revolution
It did not surprise me that there were lots of people doing the Rim to River to Rim when I did it. I met a family from Nashville at the trailhead. A mom, dad, and their 13-year-old son. I wondered if the 13-year-old would keep up with us, but he passed us several times on the trail. His father, much like me, was setting the poser pace.
And there were lots of gray hairs on the trail. There were some heavyset hikers, and they were passing me. Obviously, they had bought into the Fitness Revolution.
The Rim to River to Rim is not a race, unless you consider it a race against an early death. Finishing is the point and once you go down, as one sign warns, you must get back up. The Rim to River to Rim is a Feat of Strength.
I hike a trail in Manitou Springs, Colorado called The Incline. It’s 1 mile in length, but you gain 2000 feet of elevation, 6600 feet to 8600 feet. Regardless of what day of the week and what time of day, there is a steady line of people participating in the Fitness Revolution. Lalanne helped contribute to my passion for fitness. Arnold Schwarzenegger called him “The Apostle for Fitness.” I encourage you to check out his website and watch some of his TV episodes.
Be a Fitness Apostle
My hope is that I can continue the “Apostolic Line of Succession” and inspire others to be reborn into the culture of fitness.
I didn’t want to finish this episode without saying that as a Christmas present my wife presented me with two books about Jack Lalanne.
Anything is possible: The Jack LaLanne Story, by Steven Kaminsky
And Pride and Discipline: The Legacy of Jack LaLanne, by Elaine Lalaine and Greg Justice.
Quotes From Jack LaLanne
I wanted to share some of the quotes from Jack that the author of the first book shared at the beginning of each chapter.
“Everything you do in life, good or bad, don’t blame others, blame yourself. You control everything”
“Exercise is King, nutrition is Queen, put them together, and you’ve got a kingdom”
“Develop a positive attitude. Think and picture how amazing you are going to be. Visualize it!”
“Virtually everything we do in life is a matter of habit. Why not change your habits to better your life?
<I like this next one!>
“Your waistline is your lifeline”
“It’s difficult to change overnight, but if you are persistent and take one step at a time, you will see results.”
“If you want to change somebody, don’t preach to him. Set an example!”
“My goal has always been to help people help themselves.”
“What you put in your body is what you get out. Would you give your dog a cup of coffee, a donut and a cigarette for breakfast?”
“I never think of my age, never, I could be 20 or 100, I’m just me.”
“Anything in life is possible, if you make it happen.”
Change Yourself
Most of us are not going to change the world or have a television program on hundreds of stations throughout America, and even throughout the world, but we can change ourselves, and maybe change people in our circle of friends and family.
Maybe, in that sense, we can also be fitness revolutionaries.
