I'd like to discuss several role models in terms of physical fitness. They were not perfect human beings. But one main lesson that I drew Inspiration from them all was the idea that life and physical health is a Marathon and Not a Sprint.
When I was 18, I met a tough old guy named Scott Nearing. He was 87 years old and living in rural coastal, Maine. I had hitch-hiked up the coast to meet him and his wife, Helen. I was a dewy-eyed back-to-the-lander sort of kid, entranced with the idea of living a Henry David Thoreau sort of life. Walden (1854) was the great book by Thoreau about "Taking the Road Less Traveled". Walden combined simple living and closeness to nature, along with the example of a contemplative life shaped by the seasons. The idea of building my own shelter, raising my own food, heating with wood, this was a great draw for me at this tender age.
Scott and Helen had published a book in 1954 titled Living the Good Life: How To Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World, and 26 years later the book had became a popular volume; for many it was as an important as a book as one of those in the Bible. At least it was so for those young adults who wanted to live in Rural America.
I hitch-hiked up the Maine coast in the autumn of 1970 with my backpack. I left the coast highway in the late afternoon and walked down a secluded peninsula. When the sunset, I took out a sleeping bag and slept in the woods. The next morning walked up the driveway of the Nearing's little subsistence farm. There I spent a little over 24 hours with Scott and Helen. It was very interesting experience and I reflected periodically about that day many times over the following decades. So many layers of meaning to recall and unpack. But here, in this blog, I'll write specifically about Fitness and Health.
 |
| Scott Nearing in His 90s |
I think specifically about the physical capacity of an old man, Scott.
In the morning I spent four hours working with Scott in the garden. As we worked, he'd direct he. But he just didn't tell me what do do. He was there with shovel and pitchfork, working along side me. As we pitched compost and mulch, I had a growing sense of this old man and how hard he worked! We repeatedly shoveled compost, mulch and kelp into a garden cart and then dragged the loads out to the garden. I worked like a dog and was very strong, but he worked steadily with shovel and pitchfork.
Scott was much tougher than my father who was in his late 40s but had been a high school and college athlete. When we were done for the morning, we cleaned off their very worn shovels (the points had been eroded away from use) and garden forks and hung them up in the shed. Then we went into the house and cleaned our hands and faces and sat down and the dining room table where Helen served us a healthy lunch. I remember a good lentil soup, salad and home-made heavy bread.
Helen and I hit it off very well for various reasons. (I was guilessly gushing with great enthusiasm about someone she had been very close to, nearly 45 years before...)
Scott picked at his salad, spooned his soup and ate his bread. He was quiet and listened to Helen and I chatting. When I left, Helen gave me over ten books that Scott had written about socialism and communism! He had been a college professor in the early 1910-20s. Besides being a physical specimen, he was a prolific author. I dutifully loaded these book into my backpack. I still have several of these. After my visit I corresponded several times over the years with Helen.
Looking back, I noted to myself that I'd like to be in as good a shape as Scott when I reached his age! Later, I read Scott's book, The Conscience of a Radical (1984) and in it he mentioned that he was an enthusiastic follower of Bernarr Macfadden. Who was he, I asked myself???
 |
| Bernarr Macfadden 1910 |
It turns out that Macfadden was a physical fitness promotor who went on for many decades. Born in 1868, Macfadden published Physical Culture Magazine starting in 1899. The magazine ran from then until 1955! Macfadden made a fortune building a publishing empire. The magazine was the basis for it all. Scott had kept up with Macfadden and used him as a benchmark for himself.
Macfadden was a vegetarian, a food faddist, an enthusiast and a total nut case. But he was crazy like a fox. In his publications he appealed to the eternal human insecurities. Besides his magazines and books, he sold and promoted various products, foods and supplements. Bernarr was the promotor of
Charles Atlas, the body builder who was the original "92 Pound Weakling" who developed into a famous body builder. Scott Nearing read Macfadden's publications for decades.
It obviously worked for him! I was impressed by these men who seemed to defy age and just kept going like the Ever-Ready Bunny.
 |
| Charles Atlas, Former 97 Pound Weakling |
Macfadden emphasized having and cultivating "Pep", a combination of attitude and energy, and sold advertising to hundreds of companies all the way thru the Great Depression and both World Wars. He built up a major publishing business that went on for many years after he had died.
People are typically anxious about their health and appearance and the magazine spoke to these anxieties and gave hope and inspiration Ball State University has the entire collection of five decades of the magazine online! (don't ask me why?) https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/PhyCul
Here is a random table of contents for December of 1924:
If you look at the titles of the articles, they suggest positivity, the pursuit of happiness, coping with challenges, and looking for inspiration. I expect that these articles were mostly little sermonettes about getting off dead center and overcoming inertia. The articles seem to be targeted equally to both men and women. The covers I've seen put emphasis being fit, sexual, positive and excited about living. Covers showed men and women looking athletic and active.... Not a bad recipe for aspiring toward happiness. I can imagine people buying this magazine over the decades of the 1900s, no matter how "Cheesey" the covers and article titles might seem, and look for items that would help them resolve to change their lives or get on a more positive track. No wonder Macfadden was successful! This is really the Great American Dream, of a sort.
 |
Jack Lalanne 1960
|
Then there was Jack Lalanne in the next generation of health and exercise promotors. I was an elementary school kid, watching cartoons after school. But sometimes I'd see Jack, in his tight black jumpsuit, doing exercises on TV and talking encouragement to his viewers. Rather than using paper publications, he spoke to people over the airways... I didn't think much about Jack but his enthusiasm was a bit infectious. Even if I wasn't into that into his performance. I did hear about him doing all sorts of stunts like Bernarr Macfadden. Pulling boats across the Golden Gate, etc. But what impressed me more was seeing him in his 80s and early 90s, hawking juicers with his wife. Jack was still full of enthusiasm and energy. He died fit at 96.
 |
| Jack and Wife Hawking Their Juicer |
Besides these very public figures, there have been other more obscure athletic types I have known.
In the climbing world, I know of several old guys that kept on going and staying active almost until death. There was Fred Beckey who was still climbing into his late 80s. A younger 21 year old climbing partner of mine did an two day climbing trip with Fred when Fred was in his early 80s. Pretty impressive, Nate told me. Fred climbed into his early 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Beckey
 |
| Fred Beckey, Dirtbag Climber |
Several other famous old climbers I think of come to mind. One was Fritz Weisnner who climbed into his mid 80s. He was on K2, 700' below the summit in 1939 with a US Expedition. He was a great man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Wiessner
 |
| Fritz On Mt. Lemmon, Arizona |
 |
Fritz and Rope
|
Norman Vaughn was born in 1905 and was on the 1928 expedition to Antarctica with Admiral Byrd. When he was in his 40s, he worked for the US Army Air Force doing search and rescue of air crews in Greenland. He was an experienced sled dog musher from the earlier Antarctic experience and so was able to traverse the artic terrain. He was later involved in the Korean War as a psy-ops specialist. He recounted dropping loads of propaganda pamphlets from low flying C-47's, sending these down to North Korean troops in 1952. The planes did catch gain bullet holes from the ground troops. At age 68 in the early 1970s he was divorced and bankrupt and moved to Alaska to start a new life. He ended up competing in 13 Iditarod dogsled races. At age 88 he was back to Antarctica and climbed a mountain named after him. He died at age 100. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_D._Vaughan
 |
| Norman Vaughn and Friend |
Numerous of old cyclists and athletes come to mind who keep moving, often well into their 80s. The prime example was
Norman D Ford who was a prolific writer of a sort. He was bike touring in the 1930s and was still going on solo rides overseas and domestically well into his late 70s. He kept a cycle-touring website in the early 1990s and 2000s, long before Facebook, Twitter, etc. He was still biking well into his mid 80s. Going up to 14,000' in Colorado (Mount Evans) in his later 70s. I wrote a memorial to him at
Crazyguyonabike/NormanFord .
 |
| Norman Ford Bicycle Tourist |
On my bookshelf I've several old paperbacks from the late 1970s and early 1980s written by Ken Cooper. He wrote about "Aerobics" and I used his books to help me measure my athletic efforts in terms of aerobic effort. Fifty years later, Cooper is still going at age 90.
From using these books and accumulating my own experience, I realized that people can keep going for a very long time and are more likely to stay in good health if they keep moving and challenge their heart and lungs. This came to me early in my adult life and has been confirmed from my own life experience as well as decades of observation of others. I've generally seen that the folks who keep moving........keep moving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_H._Cooper
 |
One of Several Cooper Books
That I Have On My Shelf |
 |
| Kenneth Cooper, Still At It! |
So, the main lessons and inspirations I've drawn from these folks allong with my own reflections are:
- Keep Moving. If you're not moving, start moving. It's never too late.
- Don't Smoke nor Drink Alcoholic Beverages.
- Be Gentle on Your Joints. Lower impact exercise is best for over age 50.
- Keep an Eye on The Scales and Avoid Excess Weight (not easy sometimes)
- Avoid Accidents (an element of luck and situational awareness).
- Take in good food or at the least, take supplemental vitamins and minerals.
- Pick the Right Parents (!) If you inherit bad genetics, I am sorry...
Being Healthy does not mean you're a Good Person. You could very well be a healthy, athletic, self-obsessed, stupid, narcissistic jerk. But at the least, you're alive and vital. This, at the very least, allows you time to
work on working of becoming a better person. But if you're decrepit, unhealthy and in a constant state of ache and weariness, you're not going to have a lot of energy for anything else.
I am a conservative in terms of conserving what I have. This is true of equipment, cars, relationships, and my health. Ultimately, I'm skeptical of good intentions, including my own. (You know what the Road to Hell is paved with?) The results ultimately speak for themselves. Hope and Aspiration are fine, but without the necessary action and effort, vague intentions are not worth cold spit. I try to periodically set a goal or project in front of me. Then I work towards this by preparing for the project. Every now and then, I have to come up with a something new to go after. That way I don't get bored.
Ken Cooper talks about
'Squaring the Curve' where we slow the deterioration and maintain relatively good health later into our senior years.
“... research illustrates perfectly what we’ve been practicing for nearly 50 years.
A healthy and fit lifestyle allows us to square off the curve...that means we want
people to spend most of their lives in good health with an active lifestyle and less
time with a chronic disease.”
 |
Healthspan Versus Lifespan
("Squaring the Curve") |
The above table came from a paper of the
World Economic Forum titled:
No comments:
Post a Comment