95-year-old fitness guru shares secrets to top health

By POLLY KOLSTAD For the Tribune
To say that Jack LaLanne is a physically fit 95-year-old would be a vast understatement.
Some 80 years after he joined the business, the nationally recognized fitness expert is still at it, lifting weights, swimming and encourag­ing Americans to make exercise and proper nutrition part of their lives.
“Get it out (of your diet),” LaLanne declared during a phone interview from the San Francisco Bay area, referring to cakes, pies and junk food.
He knows this all too well.
As a teenager, LaLanne was addicted to sugar and was sickly and depressed. When his mother took him to a lecture given by fit­ness advocate Paul Bragg, LaLanne learned how to turn his back on sweets.
He became a football star and a wrestling champ, and at age 22, opened the Jack LaLanne Physical Culture Studio in Oakland, Calif.
LaLanne studied the anatomy of the human body and concentrated on body building and weight lift­ing, something that was totally new then.
“I was the first one to have women, the elderly and athletes working out with weights,” he said. “At the time all we had were solid dumbbells.
LaLanne said he also was the first to put exercise machines into motion. The leg extension machines, pulley machines using cables and weight selectors used at local gyms today were some of his first innovations.