Jack LaLanne Passes Away

We've got some sad news today to report. Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru who inspired television viewers to eat right and pump iron for decades before diet and exercise became mainstream, died yesterday. He was 96 but passed away due to respiratory failure due to pneumonia Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast.

Daily Exercise

Jack LaLanne's longtime agent Rick Hersh said the man ate healthy and exercised every single day of his life up until the end!

"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." 

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."

Feats Of Strength

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.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Comments 

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. 

The Start Of Women's Bodybuilding

In 1936 in his native Oakland, LaLanne opened a health studio that included weight-training for women and athletes. Those were revolutionary notions at the time, because of the theory that weight training made an athlete slow and "muscle bound" and made a woman look masculine.

"You have to understand that it was absolutely forbidden in those days for athletes to use weights," he once said. "It just wasn't done. We had athletes who used to sneak into the studio to work out. "It was the same with women. Back then, women weren't supposed to use weights. I guess I was a pioneer,"

You're Never Too Old To Be A Bodybuilder

Being a bodybuilder is merely about "building" your "body" and it's not something you have to do while you're still in your teenage years or in your 20s, 30s, or 40s! In fact, bodybuilders like Dexter Jackson and Ronnie Coleman were in arguably in the best condition of their lives in their 40s! Jack LaLanne said this on his age:

"I never think of my age, never...I could be 20 or 100. I never think about it, I'm just me.

SOURCE: Gazette.com