Excerpts From Saturday Evening Post Magazine ...  PRO

Excerpts From Saturday Evening Post Magazine article on Jack La Lanne: Fit for Life. At 86, Jack La Lanne has dipped, chinned, pushed, pulled, and lifted more often than anyone in recorded history. His present training regimen is tailor-made for only superheroes. While many of his contemporaries are content to sit on the sidelines, La Lanne rises at 5:00 a.m. every day, heads to his gym, and logs in a vigorous two-hour workout

La Lanne’s rise to prominence and respect gives new meaning to the popular phrase "no pain, no gain." When he began championing the virtues of sound nutrition and regular exercise in the 1930s and ’40s, people thought of him as a "charlatan and a nut," he says. He was the butt of countless jokes and public ridicule.

But his big break came in television when "The Jack La Lanne Show" debuted, introducing an unfamiliar 1950s audience to the importance of fitness

The body is a tool, according to La Lanne. Make it work for you.

Q: How’s your health?

A: Wonderful. I work out two hours every day. This morning, I was in the gym from 5:30 until 7:30.

Q: Do you work out every day?

A: Seven days a week.

Q: Do you ever miss a workout?

A: Never, even on the road.

You get out of the bed in the morning tired with aches and pains, but this body works for me. It’s my slave. I take care of it.

Many older people complain that they are too old to exercise or they really like to eat. They have so many excuses. They are thinking about the good old days. Poop on the good old days. They are gone. The good old days are today.

When I was 40, people said, "You’re over the hill." If you were a bodybuilder or gymnast, people thought you were muscle-bound and therefore couldn’t swim. So I put handcuffs on and swam from Alcatraz prison to the mainland....