Some of the young pups in my office had never heard of Jack LaLanne. Here is some of the crazy stuff the guy used to do Timeline: Jack LaLanne’s Feats
As reported on Jack LaLanne’s Web site, and as documented consistently when they happened: 1954 (age 40): Jack swam the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, underwater, with 140 pounds of equipment, including two air tanks. A world record. 1955 (age 41): Jack swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco while handcuffed. 1956 (age 42): Jack set a world record of 1,033 pushups in 23 minutes on You Asked for It, a television program with Art Baker. 1957 (age 43): Jack swam the Golden Gate Channel while towing a 2,500-pound cabin cruiser. The swift ocean currents turned this one-mile swim into a swimming distance of 6.5 miles. 1958 (age 44): Jack maneuvered a paddleboard nonstop from Farallon Islands to the San Francisco shore. The 30-mile trip took 9.5 hours. 1959 (age 45): Jack did 1,000 pushups and 1,000 chin-ups in 1 hour, 22 minutes. His well-known white German shepherd, Happy, was born this year, the same year The Jack LaLanne Show went nationwide. 1974 (age 60): For the second time, Jack swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf. Again, he was handcuffed, but this time he was also shackled and towed a 1,000-pound boat. 1975 (age 61): Repeating his performance 21 years earlier, Jack again swam the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge, underwater and handcuffed, but this time he was shackled and towed a 1,000-pound boat. 1976 (age 62): To commemorate the “Spirit of '76”, United States Bicentennial, Jack swam one mile in Long Beach Harbor. He was handcuffed and shackled, and he towed 13 boats (representing the 13 original colonies) containing 76 people. 1979 (age 65): Jack towed 65 boats in Lake Ashinoko, near Tokyo, Japan. He was handcuffed and shackled, and the boats were filled with 6,500 pounds of Lousiana Pacific wood pulp. 1980 (age 66): Jack towed 10 boats in North Miami, Florida. The boats carried 77 people, and he towed them for over one mile in less than one hour. 1984 (age 70): Once again handcuffed and shackled, Jack fought strong winds and currents as he swam 1.5 miles while towing 70 boats with 70 people from the Queen’s Way Bridge in the Long Beach Harbor to the Queen Mary. 1992 (age 78): Jack received the Academy of Body Building and Fitness Award. 1994 (age 80): Jack received the State of California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness Lifetime Achievement Award. 1996 (age 82): Jack received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Fitness Award. 1999 (age 85): Jack received the Spirit of Muscle Beach Award. 2002 (age 88): Jack received a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. 2004 (age 90): Jack celebrated his 90th birthday in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. ESPN Classic ran a 24-hour marathon of the original Jack LaLanne television shows. 2005 (age 91): Jack received the Jack Webb Award from the Los Angeles Police Department Historical Society, the Arnold Classic Lifetime Achievement Award, Interglobal’s International Infomercial Award, the Freddie, and the Medical Media Public Service Award, and he was a Free Spirit honoree at Al Neuharth's Freedom Fourm.
“Jack Lalane” just doesn’t have the ring to it that “Chuck Norris” and “jack bauer” do … besides jack doesn’t have a beard (or a roundhouse kick).
For too many people Lalane is “that old guy with the juicer on tv”.
The things about his feats is this, I never know what the range of motion on push ups and sit-ups are. I also don’t know how hard/impressive it is to pull a 1000-lb boat. I don’t know what effect buoyancy has on that number.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed with Jack Lalanne, I’m just not sure how impressed I should be because he does “non traditional” feats of strength. I know John Grimeck is strong as heck, I don’t know how “strong” Lalanne is.
Strangely enough, everytime I see Jack Lalanne my first vision is those horrible “jumpsuits” thathe wears/wore. =) He is the “face of fitness” for the 20th century in America.
Well, having tried to kick in (no oar) a small ski boat that broke in the middle of a lake one time, I can tell you that moving stuff in the water is not that easy.
LaLanne declared that his two simple rules of nutrition are: “If man made it, don’t eat it; if it tastes good, spit it out.” He often says, “I can not afford to die, it will ruin my image.”
I remeber watching his show as a kid. He was super fit and wore these odd jumpsuit workout uniforms. Remember his dog Whitey? Something tells me the white German Shepard’s name may not fly with the networks today. He also did calesthetics with chairs a lot- dips and whatnot.
It’s interesting that the exercise show has died a quiet death. It’s kind of a sad commentary on our society.
It’s interesting that the exercise show has died a quiet death. It’s kind of a sad commentary on our society.
Not really. His show has been replaced by more modern versions of “fitness shows”. There are now 24-hour fitness channels on tv. The availability of unavailability of fitness shows does not really correlate with the number of fit people (or somit seems).
I remember reading/seeing a lot about Jack LaLanne as a kid (now 30), then recently I saw his show on ESPN classic and there was a commercial about his web page
I wrote to him and he sent me an autographed picture. Now I take horse vitamins and wear this crazy leotard/leisure suit around the house. And I’m can’t walk past a chair without doing some dips on it. Check out the page, he’s like a poor man’s george foreman with all the stuff he’s endorsing and for sale.
I knew of him but never saw a list of his accomplishments. So does anyone know what he did before the age of 40 or was he one of those guys that got into it later in life?
He owned a gym and was a body builder and personal trainer. Way before his time. Visit the web site and read his bio. I wasn’t kidding. He used to take horse vitamins and other aids to improve his performance long before anything was available.
He’s so crazy and epic. But again, some of it is sort of bizarre. Like the first one – swam underwater with 140 lbs. of equipment – um, I believe today that is called “scuba diving.”
Seriously, though, I have no idea how you even swim handcuffed and shackled, so that doesn’t really mean too much. Same with ROM on push-ups/pull-ups.
These records are impressive, to be sure, but also sort of crazy. Like Dean Karnazes and the 50 marathons in 50 days. It is awesome, in the literal sense of the word, but at the same time, it is sort of like finishing 1 out of 1. Like his non-snowshoe marathon world record at the South Pole. How many people have ever tried to run a marathon without snowshoes at the South Pole?
Jack LaLanne is a pioneer, but also a showman. Of course, the world would definitely be better off if more people bought into the Jack LaLanne ideal vs. the sit-in-front-of-the-tv-and-do-nothing ideal.
I’m impressed by anyone who would be willing to put an entire banana and orange among many other things in a juicer, peel and all, and drink the juice. I would only bet that would be totally disgusting, but if he says it’s good for you, who am I to argue? I guess Nietzsche was right, that which doesn’t kill you does make you stronger.
