Francois Henri "Jack" LaLanne (; September 26, 1914 – January 23, 2011) was an American fitness and nutrition guru and motivational speaker. He described himself as being a "sugarholic" and a "junk food junkie" until he was 15 years old. He also had behavioral problems but "turned his life around" after listening to a public lecture about the benefits of good nutrition by health food pioneer Paul Bragg. During his career, he came to believe that the country's overall health depended on the health of its population, and he referred to physical culture and nutrition as "the salvation of America". He was nicknamed the "Godfather of Fitness". LaLanne hosted the first and longest-running nationally syndicated fitness television program, The Jack LaLanne Show, from 1951 to 1985. He published numerous books on fitness and was widely recognized for publicly preaching the health benefits of regular exercise and a good diet. He started working out with weights when they were an oddity. As early as 1936, at the age of 21, he opened the nation's first modern health club in Oakland, California, which became a prototype for dozens of similar gyms bearing his name, later licensing them to Bally. One of LaLanne's 1950s television exercise programs was aimed toward women, whom he also encouraged to join his health clubs. He invented a number of exercise machines, including the pulley and leg extension devices and the Smith machine, as well as protein supplement drinks, resistance bands, and protein bars. He also popularized juicing and the jumping jack. He produced his own series of videos so viewers could be coached virtually. He pioneered coaching the elderly and disabled to exercise in order to enhance their strength and health. LaLanne also gained recognition for his success as a bodybuilder and for his prodigious feats of strength. At the age of 70, handcuffed and shackled, he towed 70 boats, carrying a total of 70 people, a mile and a half through Long Beach Harbor. Steve Reeves credited LaLanne as his inspiration to build his muscular physique while keeping a slim waist. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as governor of California, placed him on his Governor's Council on Physical Fitness, and on the occasion of LaLanne's death he credited LaLanne for being "an apostle for fitness" by inspiring "billions all over the world to live healthier lives". LaLanne was inducted into the California Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early life LaLanne was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Jennie (née Garaig) and Jean/John LaLanne, French immigrants from Oloron-Sainte-Marie. Both entered the US in the 1880s as young children at the Port of New Orleans. LaLanne had two older brothers, Ervil, who died in childhood (1906–1911), and Norman (1908–2005), who nicknamed him "Jack". He grew up in Bakersfield, California, and later moved with his family to Berkeley, California, circa 1928. In 1939, his father died at the age of 58 in a San Francisco hospital, which LaLanne attributed to "coronary thrombosis and cirrhosis of the liver". In his book The Jack LaLanne Way to Vibrant Health, LaLanne wrote that as a boy he was addicted to sugar and junk food. He had violent episodes directed against himself and others, describing himself as "a miserable kid ... it was like hell". Besides having a bad temper, LaLanne also suffered from headaches and bulimia, and temporarily dropped out of high school at the age of 14. The following year, aged 15, he heard health food pioneer Paul Bragg give a talk on health and nutrition, focusing on the "evils of meat and sugar". Bragg's message had a powerful influence on LaLanne, who then changed his life and started focusing on his diet and exercise. In his own words, he was "born again". He also began exercising daily (although while serving during World War II as a Pharmacist Mate First Class at the Sun Valley Naval Convalescent Hospital, LaLanne stated that he started bodybuilding at "age 13"). Describing his change of diet, LaLanne stated, "I had to take my lunch alone to the football field to eat so no one would see me eat my raw veggies, whole bread, raisins and nuts. You don't know the crap I went through". Writer Hal Reynolds, who interviewed LaLanne in 2008, noted that he became an avid swimmer and trained with weights.
[LaLanne] found two men working out in a back room, who kept weights in a locked box. When he asked them if he could use their weights, they laughed at him and said, "Kid, you can't even lift those weights." So he challenged them both to a wrestling match with the bet that if he could beat them, they would give him a key to the box. After he beat them both, they gave him a key and he used their weights until he was able to buy his own. LaLanne went back to school, where he made the high school football team. He later attended college in San Francisco where he earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree. He studied Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body and concentrated on bodybuilding and weightlifting.
Fitness career
Early wrestling career LaLanne won the American Athletic Foundation Wrestling Championship in 1930 and the American Athletic Union medal for wrestling in 1936. He was put on the 1936 Olympic wrestling team but was taken off the team because he was "charging money for exercise" by opening a gym and thus "considered a professional".
Health clubs Arnold Schwarzenegger said of Lalanne, "It doesn't matter where you go, there's a health club, and it all started with Jack LaLanne." In 1936, he opened the nation's first health and fitness club in Oakland, California, where he offered supervised weight and exercise training and gave nutritional advice. His primary goal was to encourage and motivate his clients to improve their overall health. Doctors, however, advised their patients to stay away from his health club, a business totally unheard of at the time, and warned their patients that "LaLanne was an exercise 'nut', whose programs would make them 'muscle-bound' and cause severe medical problems". LaLanne recalls the initial reaction of doctors to his promotion of weight lifting:
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