A Tribute To Jack LaLanne

Jack LaLanne is the godfather of fitness. Over a career that spanned over 75 years he was a popular bodybuilder, an entrepreneur, an inventor, a fitness and nutrition expert, and a ballsy public performer (he was still towing 70 row boats while shackled and hand-cuffed at age 70). He died Monday at age 96. What was the secret of his longevity?
“Clean thoughts and dirty girls.”

LaLanne was a long-time proponent of regular exercise and proper nutrition. It’s a mantra he would repeat and live throughout his entire life. He also was one of the early voices speaking out for the use of lifting weights, yet he received a lot of criticism.
“People thought I was a charlatan and a nut. The doctors were against me—they said that working out with weights would give people heart attacks and they would lose their sex drive.”

Jack also never ate processed foods and only ate whole foods. Ironically, he thought organic food was pretty lame (the federal government labeling something as “organic” doesn’t mean shit, by the way…most products are hardly different — if at all — from their non-organic counter parts):
“It’s [organic food] a bunch of bull,” he said. “How do you know what’s really organic? Today, there’s all these impurities in the water and the air. The water for the fruits and vegetables has junk in it. If you get enough vitamins and minerals out of normal food and whole grains, and you get enough proteins and exercise (that’s the key), then nature builds up a tolerance to all of these things. It’s survival of the fittest. You can’t have everything perfect, that’s impossible, but the fit survive.”

There was one constant throughout Jack’s life: training and exercise. He attacked it with a consistent voracity that is hard to comprehend (given the number of years he did it):
“I train like I’m training for the Olympics or for a Mr. America contest, the way I’ve always trained my whole life. You see, life is a battlefield. Life is survival of the fittest. How many healthy people do you know? How many happy people do you know? Think about it. People work at dying, they don’t work at living. My workout is my obligation to life. It’s my tranquilizer. It’s part of the way I tell the truth — and telling the truth is what’s kept me going all these years.”

Jack LaLanne may have past away, but his lessons will live on with us. A person should be strong and make it a habit to habitually exercise and eat well. Everything else in life is irrelevant because your wealth is dependent on your health.


“I don’t care how old I live; I just want to be LIVING while I am living!”

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Afterword
I want to point out that LaLanne opened the first gym in America. He would eventually expand this franchise into over 200 gyms in a time when “going to the gym” seemed foreign. Jack had a TV show for over 30 years that talked about the fundamentals of fitness; hard work and consistency. However, in the 1980s the aerobics boom created the “fast results” mantra that still permeates fitness culture today. LaLanne was pushed out of the spot light because his techniques and advice weren’t sexy or appealing. It’s unfortunate because society’s marketing requirements changed, and Jack LaLanne was left in the dust despite his sound advice and solid track record.

Eventually he would sign this franchise over to Bally Total Fitness. I think this was the right move for Jack, but unfortunately the “gym business” shifted into the falsehood that “bringing people into your gym means you earn money”, instead of Jack’s notion that “bringing people into your gym will allow them to learn how to become fit and healthy”. Jack did create the first gym franchise in America, yet he aimed at helping people (as evidenced by his advocacy throughout his career that lasts twice as long as most American’s lives). Unfortunately the industry shifted away from fundamental concepts like “putting the work in” and “making good decisions”. Instead, that industry aims for contracts, commitments, and cheap marketing techniques. A gym owners true goal is to make money on their investment instead of creating a quality investment that makes money. This is what spurned the horrendously shitty fitness industry that constantly jumps on the bandwagons of fast results, fancy bells and whistles, and obscure rationalization (i.e. muscles don’t get fucking “confused”).

If we learn anything from Jack, it’s that the fundamentals will always be superior to anything the fitness industry can provide. Hard work. Consistency. Good eating choices. These will prevail over anything the industry can throw at us. Yet it isn’t enough for us to know this and mock the industry. Take this fundamental knowledge and gently help your friends and family from the cave of shadows to real knowledge. Just make sure they understand that it won’t be easy. Nothing really is, even if you’re Jack LaLanne.