Jack LaLanne dead at 96: the fitness pioneer you don't know

January 23, 2011- Jack LaLanne died earlier today at age 96 from respiratory failure due to pneumonia. At this point, some readers are wondering who Jack LaLanne was, while others know him as a senior citizen that wore jogging suits and sold juicers on TV. But LaLanne was a pioneer in fitness before it became an industry.

LaLanne was a chiropractor who opened his first health spa (what we’d now call a gym) back in 1936. Many of the things we see in gyms today came from the mind of Jack LaLanne. He is credited as the inventor of the leg extension machine, weight selector devices and several cable and pulley machines that are standards. Even the most hardcore bodybuilder who thinks pulley machines are only for soccer moms and newbies still has to thank LaLanne for the Smith machine that they likely use.

Jack LaLanne was known to generations as a guy in a one-piece jumpsuit, leading some workouts on TV. While the “workouts” that LaLanne led were about as strenuous a trip to Walmart, we have to keep in mind that this was an age when there wasn’t a gym on every corner. When looking at his old shows in black and white, it’s easy to chuckle a little over how hokey it looks by today’s standards but, once again, LaLanne was paving the way for a new industry. His exercise show ran 34 years. Does anyone want to take bets on whether The Biggest Loser will last 34 seasons?

 If you have an exercise DVD, you can thank Jack. Before DVD’s, VHS or even color TV, LaLanne was selling home exercise programs that coupled an elastic band (called a” Glamour Stretcher”) with an exercise program that Jack led via phonograph record. (At this point, the Fitness Examiner realized that some readers have never owned a record and started to feel old). Fast forward to today where we have elastic tubes coming back into common use and DVD programs to guide you through a workout. Even his “health spas” survive. After building up a chain of about 200 or so locations, he sold them to Bally Fitness, which you now know as Bally Total Fitness.

LaLanne performed a lot of publicity stunts like swimming to Alcatraz while handcuffed, shackled and pulling a 1,000 pound boat, but he was always bringing attention to fitness. He set a world record on national TV when he performed 1,033 push-ups in 23 minutes.  There was a time when Jack LaLanne was a household name and was THE name in a budding fitness industry.

He should always be remembered for his pioneering efforts to bring fitness to women. Decades before Richard Simmons encouraged a woman to exercise, Jack was telling them to just “get up and do something.” In a time when women simply didn’t exercise, LaLanne told them it was ok to do it. He even went so far as to encourage women in his spas to (gasp) lift weights.

Fitness writer and model Jamie Eason referred to LaLanne as “the Godfather of Fitness.”  Ft. Myers resident Carol Gardner said she remembers LaLanne appearing on a lot of talk shows when she was younger. She said “his upbeat, positive personality is something you saw later in people like Richard Simmons.” A few younger people that this writer talked with really didn’t know who LaLanne was, but Lisa Clemens of Cape Coral did remember her mom talking about him and remembered his juicer commercials.

Jack LaLanne was, in many aspects, ahead of his time. He was a trailblazer in the fitness industry and should be remembered as such. Although some of the things he encouraged people to do and how he did it have been supplanted by better techniques and equipment, one of his core principals will always remain: Just get up and do something.

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