Dr. Ellington Darden: Trailblazer of Resistance Training & Health

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Welcome, Dr. Darden. It's great to be here with you today.

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How are you doing? Oh, I'm fine. We've got a little cold spell here in Orlando, Florida, but,

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uh- ... ordinarily it' would be about 75 degrees, but, uh, I'm enjoying the cool weather, so I'm fine.

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and ready to go.

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What, what's cool for you? What's a cold spell in Florida, look like?

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Well,

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it's been, uh, it's been about 35

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or 40 for the last couple of days, which is very unusual.

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I, uh, I've lived in Orlando for about 20

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years, and usually I wear Bermuda shorts year-round.

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And this is one of the few years

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that I've had to put on long pants to go. to a restaurant or move around.

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So fortunately today I've got some shorts back on with sandals.

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So I'm feeling

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good. All right. I'm feeling good as well, so

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let's do it. Uh, you, you've had quite the impact on the world of physical culture, resistance training, health and

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fitness. Your experiences and publications are extensive and impressive, and we're grateful to have the chance to sit down with

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you? today and learn. So my first

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question to you is this: Where did this journey start for you? Well, I was born and raised in Conroe,

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Texas, which was about 35 miles north of Houston.

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And, uh,

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Conroe was a hotbed for

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sports, high school sports. I wanted to be a football

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player,

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but during the, uh, '40s and '50s,

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y- you not only wanted to be a football player, but you wanted to be an all-around athlete.

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Seems like?

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most of the, the guys that I admired in high

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school were not only football players, but they

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also played baseball and basketball, and may have, uh, run track. So you wanted to be an all-around athlete.

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And I remember

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in about 1954 or '55, I was 10

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or 11 years,

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old, I watched the movie,

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uh, on Jim

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Thorpe, who

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was a, a, a great Olympic athlete and an all-around,

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uh,

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performer, and Burt Lancaster played his role,

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and boy, I wanted to be like Jim Thorpe. You know, I wanted to be good in football, baseball, basketball,

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and be able to run and

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jump.

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So that's what I started off trying to do when I was in elementary and junior high school and high

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school.

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And fortunately, I was a good athlete,

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but I wasn't

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very big. I was about 5'10"

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or 11" and weighed 140 or 150 pounds. I wanted to be bigger and

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stronger, and that's what got me interested in strength training or lifting barbells and dumbbells

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in the

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middle, middle part of 1956 and '7.

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Yeah, absolutely. I think one of my first projects in grade school on athletics was about Jim

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Thorpe. Yeah. 'Cause obviously he's the first kind of all-around athlete and kind of do it all kind of guy,

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so pretty cool to hear that. So you began at a young age, and now when you're lifting with barbells,

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and you started with physical exercise and, and resistance training. Where were you doing that? Local gyms? Was it something

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you were doing at home? And on top

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of that, what was that like during that time? Were

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people around. you, actively participating in resistance training? Was it a little bit taboo?

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What was going on there? Well, in my town in Conroe,

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which was

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about 10,000 people lived there, there wasn't a gym in town.

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There was a couple of guys that did have a barbell set. One guy I remember

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was small, and he was into martial

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arts, and nobody knew what martial arts were at that time, but he had

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some big arms, and he had a collection of muscle magazines,

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and this was in, must have been in '57 or '58. So I borrowed some of his muscle magazines

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and eventually

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bought a 110-pound

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Healthways

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barbell

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set, and that was in 1958.

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And we' had a

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coach in high school

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who was in the Marine Corps or whatever, and he had a little bit of experience

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of lifting

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barbells. So I learned some

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from him, but there wasn't, uh, there wasn't a lot of interest.

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I, uh, I was one of the few people in high school. We had

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about, uh, 400 people in our high school, you know,

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say

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200 guys and 200

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girls. And I can remember well, when I was in the, ninth

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grade, I bought the, barbell set, and some of the

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guys in our neighborhood came around and started

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working out with me, and there were two or three more that bought barbell sets. So I ended

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up with, with about 400 pounds of,

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of weights, and after three or four months I was the only one left that was interested.

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So that was in 1958.

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And

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not many coaches... The coaches weren't big on lifting, you know. I knew more about it than they did after

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reading all these magazines that

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the buddy, uh, gave me over that summer, so,

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uh, I became somewhat of an expert when I was in

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the, the 10th grade,

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you know. So it was

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interesting. Yeah, very cool. And you mentioned, you know, late 1950s and some of the magazines that were out there.

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I

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think Joe Weider probably started

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his magazine,

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Your Physique, I think started around that

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time, which- Yeah, you couldn't get- ... affected ... you couldn't get Joe Weider's magazines. There was, down at our

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newsstand, they had, uh, a couple of Strength and Health magazines. So I remember reading those

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initially. And, uh, about a year

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later, some

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of the, the Joe Weider's magazines came

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in, but I had, I had an opportunity when I was in the ninth and 10th

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grade that I took metal shop in

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high school, and I ended up making, uh, some racks

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for my, uh, barbell equipment, and there was a foundry in town.

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So

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I, uh, had about 200 extra pound plates made, 200 pounds, 25 pound plates, and some bigger 40 pound plates

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made at this foundry.

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So in my, uh, parents' garage, I had a pretty good, uh, setup, you know. I could do bench presses

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and

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squats, chin-ups

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and dips, and,

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uh, that became my workout area when I was

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in high school. Very cool. I took metal sculpture in high school as well, and metal shop too, but

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I didn't make any- Yeah ... cool barbell or gym equipment,

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but I did make a piston and a couple other things, learned how to plasma cut-

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Oh ... and weld, things like that, so very cool. So you started with some magazines. You started training,

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uh, into high school.

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Obviously,

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you started, like you had mentioned, built your own rack, had some

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plates,

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and now you're in high school, and you're involved with athletics.

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You start to have, a deeper appreciation for resistance

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training. What led you down this road of,

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"I want to now go to college and continue my education in this area" because you got

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your bachelor's and your master's

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in physical ed from Baylor

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and

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your doctorate from F-

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FSU. What made

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you- Well ... you know, is this...

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What led you down the road of, "Hey, I, I wanna be studying this now, and this is something that

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I could see myself potentially

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dedicating, you know, my professional life to"?

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Well,

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primarily, Gabe, because

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I started building some muscle.

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I put on 10 or 15 pounds

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every year, and,

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uh, I went from 140 pounds to 190 pounds when I was a senior

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in high school. So my goal

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when I started high school

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was to weigh 180 pounds and be as big and as strong as some of the seniors that I saw

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and admired. And eventually, I became one of those seniors who was bigger and stronger, and, and, uh, you know,

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I became, uh, hooked,

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hooked on strength training and bodybuilding.

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And, uh, when I went to Baylor University, I, I played football for two years

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there, but I had seen

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a,

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uh, a bodybuilding show in Houston when I was a senior in high

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school, and I'd even entered a contest,

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a teenage contest at one of the YMCAs in Houston when,

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when I was a senior, and I met,

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uh, Ronnie Ray, who was a, uh, a, a big, strong

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teenager a couple of years older than me,

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and he

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was, uh, he was about five foot one, but boy, he had a chest and a set of arms that

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were unbelievable on a kid

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at, uh, that age and that size. So

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I started, uh,

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talking to him and eventually met,

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uh, Ed Cook, who I joined his gym in Waco. He was

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a bodybuilder.

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And, uh, I met a lot of the guys from UT in Austin and from Dallas

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who were involved in bodybuilding and power lifting. So

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that,

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uh, that excited me and got me going when I was in Waco in,

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uh, in the mid 1960s.

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What was it like

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in your formal education

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at Baylor and maybe a little bit at FSU,

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right? Because on the practical side, you're meeting people, you're reading magazines,

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you're building your own equipment, you're training.

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What was going on in the formal education side in relation to resistance training?

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Not

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much.

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The, y- you know, the people involved in physical education didn't know a lot about

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it. You

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would, uh, study anatomy and physiology,

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and,

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uh,

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y- you know, you, you learned

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the muscles and what they did and

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the kinesiology

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aspects

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of,

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of training, but you didn't,

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uh... There was only a couple of books available

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talking about progressive resistance exercise, and they were just basic, you know, which Bob Hoffman and Joe

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Weider repeated

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and added

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their, their,

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uh, 50 cents' worth to it, you

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know. But most people did two or three sets of eight to 12 repetitions for 10 or 12 exercises,

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uh, three times a week, and, and then if you stayed

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with that for longer than a year, you got into split routines and-And training more often than

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three times a

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week. So when I, uh,

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started entering bodybuilding and power lifting

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contests,

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that, that was the state of the

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art. And, uh, that's what you did, and it just became,

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um, sort of more

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is better. And, uh, I didn't know any difference than that until I

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met, uh, and started reading about Arthur Jones's concepts in the early 1970s.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, we'll get in a little bit about Arthur Jones and your involvement with Nautilus, which I'm really excited

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to hear about today.

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And,

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you know, Jan Todd and

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the Stark Center, they've done a tremendous job of highlighting a lot of the significant eras of physical culture.

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You mentioned progressive, progressive resistance exercise and

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Thomas DeLorme. And then obviously

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we had Dr. Peter Karvonen and Bob Hoffman- Right ... at Springfield College in the, you know, 1940.

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Was that idea of muscle balance still very present during that time? And do you think that contributes to why

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resistance training wasn't so popular? What was your experience? Or, or in talking with people around communities and athletics

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and coaches, were there a lot of people that were scared about this muscle, idea of becoming muscle bound

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through resistance training? Yeah, the people who were not involved

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feared,

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you know, be- becoming muscle bound, and the coaches that weren't involved feared that.

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But once you got involved,

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it's like, uh, Jan and Terry used to say, all- of a sudden you realize that it,

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it,

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um, lifting, uh, barbells and dumbbells made you stronger and also made you more flexible

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and, and made you into a

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better,

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uh, athlete.

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So the, the common person, the common athlete. who wasn't involved in strength training,

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they were afraid.

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But once you jumped in and, and experienced it for a couple of months, you realized that it

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was a myth.

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And, you know, eventually,

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I think most people today understand,

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or even 20 or

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30 years ago, the, the athletes,

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uh, started strength training and seeing the benefits.

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But when I played football at Baylor, there, there was only a handful of athletes that did strength training,

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and it was probably the same

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way at the University of Texas and throughout

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the country, uh. Yeah, and I believe in the late 1960s or so, that's when we had Boyd

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Epley, right? A little bit more known name and story within strength- Yeah ... tra- within resistance

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training and power. But we had Boyd Epley with a similar experience in that he was an undergrad. He started

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working with the football team, and all- of a sudden something was happening over at' Nebraska football

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right? And only if you were involved with the training then- Yeah, well, that's the way it was

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all over in, throughout the country. You know, if you had someone

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that was interested in strength training that brought it into the university and college setting,

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then, uh,

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you,

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you could, you could see the results in a matter of a couple of months.

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But it took several years for it to get around

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and, uh, Epley helped,

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uh, helped that come about primarily because

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n- you know, Nebraska started winning football games and,

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and the national championship, you know, that they had.

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So you always start looking,

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try to see what, uh, whoever is the national champion, what are they doing? Because they may know,

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know some secrets that we don't on the other side of the river, you

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know? Yeah. And then, you know, along with Boyd Epley, you have Alvin Roy as well and, and LSU. So

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like you said, winning football games always helps. So, um, how about the influence

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of Dr. Kenneth Cooper and the term aerobics and the Aerobics Center in Dallas in the '60s? Was

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a lot of the fitness industry focused

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on aerobics and less hesitant to get involved with aerobics

00:16:31.636 --> 00:16:33.076
after the birth of

00:16:34.436 --> 00:16:38.136
the Cooper Aerobics Center? What was that like during that time? Yeah, well, they, these, uh,

00:16:40.016 --> 00:16:42.376
during, during the '60s and '70s,

00:16:43.596 --> 00:16:44.096
books

00:16:45.016 --> 00:16:45.336
were,

00:16:45.516 --> 00:16:45.776
uh,

00:16:47.116 --> 00:16:52.416
a- an important aspect of exercise and food and nutrition.

00:16:53.236 --> 00:16:57.236
You know, the publishing industry was, uh, very strong

00:16:57.256 --> 00:16:59.276
then, unlike it is today.

00:17:00.516 --> 00:17:02.136
You know, most of the information

00:17:03.156 --> 00:17:07.036
that was available were in books and in the magazines that

00:17:07.076 --> 00:17:10.276
were published. So Kenneth Cooper

00:17:11.396 --> 00:17:12.976
had several best-selling

00:17:13.096 --> 00:17:18.996
books that pushed, uh, primarily aerobic activity or

00:17:19.096 --> 00:17:22.296
running as the best all-around

00:17:22.955 --> 00:17:27.076
exercise if you wanted to go from fatness to fitness or get in

00:17:27.156 --> 00:17:27.465
shape.

00:17:29.196 --> 00:17:36.676
So, uh, that was a major influence, and there were several running books that became bestsellers.

00:17:37.986 --> 00:17:38.956
And, uh, then

00:17:39.016 --> 00:17:43.416
the, the women got involved, and Jane Fonda

00:17:43.516 --> 00:17:47.016
and, and Denise Austin and, and some of the,

00:17:47.996 --> 00:17:51.116
the, uh, aerobic people that tied into Ken

00:17:51.156 --> 00:17:57.036
Cooper, you know, broadened the concept and took it to the average,

00:17:57.176 --> 00:17:58.976
uh, woman on the

00:17:59.116 --> 00:18:02.016
street. So women are

00:18:02.376 --> 00:18:03.496
traditionally...

00:18:04.796 --> 00:18:09.016
They, they buy more books on physical fitness than men do.

00:18:09.156 --> 00:18:11.416
So that started a craze

00:18:12.376 --> 00:18:13.156
of doing,

00:18:13.296 --> 00:18:17.016
uh, various ca- calisthenic exercises to

00:18:17.076 --> 00:18:23.080
music. And, uh-That spread, you know, across the

00:18:23.120 --> 00:18:27.400
country. And it wasn't until later that strength training

00:18:28.180 --> 00:18:31.160
became an important aspect in, um,

00:18:32.360 --> 00:18:35.500
both women's exercise and men's exercise.

00:18:35.540 --> 00:18:40.260
So fortunately, that took place along with,

00:18:40.340 --> 00:18:42.220
uh, like we're gonna talk about

00:18:42.300 --> 00:18:44.130
soon, uh, Arthur Jones'

00:18:44.900 --> 00:18:48.280
era of bringing Nautilus equipment into the equation.

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:50.140
Yeah,

00:18:50.490 --> 00:18:52.280
and then right, right before we do that,

00:18:52.700 --> 00:18:54.630
you were at Florida State University-

00:18:55.440 --> 00:18:58.100
Yeah ... and you're getting your doctorate in food and nutrition.

00:18:59.240 --> 00:18:59.310
Well,

00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:02.240
actually- What- ... my doctorate was in exercise

00:19:02.340 --> 00:19:04.040
science. I

00:19:04.120 --> 00:19:07.100
had, uh, w- wha- when I

00:19:07.560 --> 00:19:08.200
got involved

00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:11.220
in, in exercise science at Florida State

00:19:11.829 --> 00:19:13.240
in 1968,

00:19:14.340 --> 00:19:15.720
to get a PhD

00:19:16.760 --> 00:19:18.920
in exercise science you had to

00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:21.080
have, uh,

00:19:21.620 --> 00:19:24.040
a written knowledge of two foreign languages.

00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:28.980
And I saved that till last, and

00:19:29.020 --> 00:19:32.320
fortunately, after a couple of years

00:19:33.240 --> 00:19:41.300
they changed that' requirement and said you could have 20 hours outside the College of Education.

00:19:42.500 --> 00:19:43.180
So exercise

00:19:43.260 --> 00:19:46.140
science, physical education, motor learning,

00:19:46.320 --> 00:19:51.280
these were, were study areas in the College of Education.

00:19:52.800 --> 00:19:56.200
And the College of Education said

00:19:56.580 --> 00:19:56.940
that to

00:19:57.040 --> 00:20:03.840
substitute for a foreign language you could go outside the College of Education, so I went outside to food and

00:20:03.860 --> 00:20:05.780
nutrition. Mm, mm-hmm.

00:20:06.060 --> 00:20:12.040
And, uh, I ended up getting 20 hours in food and nutrition, and then hanging around for another

00:20:12.120 --> 00:20:14.160
year and doing some post-doctoral study

00:20:15.340 --> 00:20:17.180
with another 20 hours in food

00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:20.180
and nutrition. So that was my connection

00:20:21.360 --> 00:20:22.140
to, uh,

00:20:22.800 --> 00:20:23.060
to the

00:20:23.100 --> 00:20:28.080
nutrition, and bringing it into physical fitness and strength training

00:20:28.100 --> 00:20:28.939
and bodybuilding.

00:20:30.219 --> 00:20:34.550
Got it. Okay. So then once you finished up there, how did you get involved

00:20:35.580 --> 00:20:37.140
with Arthur Jones

00:20:37.180 --> 00:20:40.040
and Nautilus? Well, I

00:20:40.100 --> 00:20:45.890
had met... Arthur Jones, uh, started writing for Ironman magazine,

00:20:46.060 --> 00:20:52.040
which was, which was a little-known publication in the '50s and '60s. You

00:20:52.100 --> 00:20:56.100
could, you could occasionally see it on a newsstand, but

00:20:56.160 --> 00:20:56.860
not often.

00:20:58.060 --> 00:21:04.460
But Arthur Jones started writing for Ironman magazine, and it created

00:21:04.540 --> 00:21:09.420
a, a huge, uh, amount of publicity, because Arthur

00:21:10.920 --> 00:21:11.440
met,

00:21:11.580 --> 00:21:12.980
uh, Casey

00:21:13.080 --> 00:21:16.280
Viator at the 1970

00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:20.000
Mr. America contest that Chris Dickerson won.

00:21:21.320 --> 00:21:22.160
And, uh,

00:21:22.940 --> 00:21:26.040
he brought, uh, Casey to his, uh,

00:21:27.300 --> 00:21:30.260
to his facility in Lake Helen, Florida

00:21:31.560 --> 00:21:33.000
in, uh, the summer

00:21:33.740 --> 00:21:35.160
of 1970.

00:21:35.580 --> 00:21:41.260
And Casey Viator won the Mr. America contest the following year in 1971.

00:21:43.380 --> 00:21:49.280
So I met Casey when he, he lived outside of,

00:21:49.380 --> 00:21:53.020
uh, New Orleans in Lafayette or New

00:21:53.140 --> 00:21:56.240
Liberia, Louisiana,

00:21:56.580 --> 00:21:58.140
when I was, uh, in

00:21:58.180 --> 00:22:04.000
Waco, and he started coming over as a teenager entering a lot of the bodybuilding shows

00:22:04.060 --> 00:22:09.740
that I entered. And he was three or four years younger than I was. I managed to beat him when

00:22:09.780 --> 00:22:16.670
he was, you know, 16 or 17, but all of a sudden when he entered the 1970

00:22:16.800 --> 00:22:18.280
Mr. America contest

00:22:19.550 --> 00:22:22.180
he got third place and I think I got 10th

00:22:22.220 --> 00:22:24.920
place, so I was wondering, "What in the world

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:28.560
is this kid doing?" And Arthur Jones,

00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:33.300
uh, brought him to Florida and he turned into a phenomenon,

00:22:34.540 --> 00:22:36.220
you know, who was, uh,

00:22:36.700 --> 00:22:37.960
very big, very

00:22:38.139 --> 00:22:40.180
strong. And,

00:22:40.300 --> 00:22:46.000
uh, that got me interested in Arthur Jones, so when I finished up

00:22:47.100 --> 00:22:51.900
at Florida State University in Tallahassee I started working with Arthur

00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:53.920
Jones in Lake Helen,

00:22:54.020 --> 00:22:55.880
Florida, the, the same

00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:02.300
year. And, uh, Casey was there and I was there, and so we started a huge,

00:23:03.380 --> 00:23:03.500
uh,

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:04.500
movement

00:23:05.380 --> 00:23:08.350
and a lot of publicity toward the Nautilus equipment,

00:23:08.440 --> 00:23:08.800
which,

00:23:09.140 --> 00:23:12.960
which has just been organized and started in 1970.

00:23:15.180 --> 00:23:16.240
Yeah, and then it sounds

00:23:16.300 --> 00:23:19.960
like, you know, looking at your resume and a lot of the publications, you start

00:23:20.020 --> 00:23:23.000
to, really start to pump out a lot of books

00:23:23.100 --> 00:23:26.360
and publish writing about

00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:31.790
training, right? Yeah. So now you're entering this phase of we had a lot of magazines, but now we're sitting

00:23:31.820 --> 00:23:39.180
down with research and, and really going through formal publication process for a lot of the resistance training recommendations,

00:23:39.360 --> 00:23:42.220
correct? Yeah. Well, this is interesting, because

00:23:42.800 --> 00:23:42.890
wh- when

00:23:43.040 --> 00:23:47.940
I started Florida State University, they were on a quarter

00:23:48.080 --> 00:23:53.280
system there. This was in the spring of 1968.

00:23:54.840 --> 00:23:57.000
They had four 10-week quarters

00:23:57.040 --> 00:24:03.000
in a year. Baylor and the University of Texas, they were on the semester system, you know, and you

00:24:03.040 --> 00:24:06.520
had, I think, 17 or 18-week semesters.

00:24:07.320 --> 00:24:08.160
But at Florida

00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:13.940
State in the graduate school they, uh, pushed

00:24:14.060 --> 00:24:19.000
you hard in, uh, the various courses

00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:21.000
to do pilot studies

00:24:22.060 --> 00:24:28.092
to get ready to do your dissertation two or three years later.And,

00:24:28.192 --> 00:24:28.432
uh,

00:24:30.152 --> 00:24:34.952
I, I was fascinated by these little pilot studies. Now, a pilot

00:24:35.052 --> 00:24:43.152
study in physical education or exercise science, you would take a handful of people and put them through some type

00:24:43.192 --> 00:24:44.052
of exercise

00:24:44.592 --> 00:24:50.212
program, record it, and you would write it up in a style that was similar to the way

00:24:50.272 --> 00:24:52.172
you would write up your dissertation.

00:24:54.052 --> 00:24:54.492
Now,

00:24:56.192 --> 00:24:57.152
there were about

00:24:58.012 --> 00:24:58.652
15

00:24:58.692 --> 00:25:03.112
or 20 students involved in working on a PhD

00:25:04.252 --> 00:25:05.372
at Florida State,

00:25:06.512 --> 00:25:06.992
and

00:25:07.872 --> 00:25:14.072
I was the only one out of the group that liked to do research and

00:25:14.112 --> 00:25:17.842
writing, and I got

00:25:18.052 --> 00:25:21.932
good at it. The rest of them would save it to the very

00:25:22.012 --> 00:25:25.872
last thing, you know, and they would end up not

00:25:26.012 --> 00:25:27.072
doing a, a good

00:25:27.172 --> 00:25:31.112
job. Well, I had a couple of teachers that taught me how

00:25:31.192 --> 00:25:33.132
to write, how

00:25:33.192 --> 00:25:34.092
to do

00:25:34.232 --> 00:25:37.012
research, and how to present it in

00:25:37.052 --> 00:25:37.912
the right way,

00:25:39.292 --> 00:25:43.092
and I was good at it right from the start.

00:25:43.932 --> 00:25:44.932
So that got me an

00:25:45.012 --> 00:25:47.972
advantage in all the coursework that I

00:25:48.012 --> 00:25:52.092
had to take to do my dissertation two

00:25:52.212 --> 00:25:54.952
years later. And,

00:25:55.052 --> 00:26:00.242
uh, I had, I had about 20 publications

00:26:01.532 --> 00:26:04.452
during my last year at Florida State.

00:26:05.112 --> 00:26:05.292
Wow.

00:26:05.612 --> 00:26:11.072
And half of them were in the scientific journals. You know, most people didn't like to write in scientific

00:26:11.152 --> 00:26:13.932
journals. Well, I got the hang of that easy

00:26:14.032 --> 00:26:14.272
on,

00:26:15.052 --> 00:26:18.892
or, uh, early on and, uh, got

00:26:19.012 --> 00:26:22.802
good at it. So when- Mm ... I met Arthur Jones in 1970,

00:26:23.932 --> 00:26:24.112
he,

00:26:24.252 --> 00:26:29.312
uh, he encouraged me to continue with my research and writing and get things

00:26:29.352 --> 00:26:34.052
published, and getting those articles published

00:26:34.752 --> 00:26:37.231
led to getting books published,

00:26:38.752 --> 00:26:39.332
and

00:26:39.772 --> 00:26:42.032
I learned again

00:26:42.692 --> 00:26:46.892
how to do that in a very efficient manner. So that

00:26:47.012 --> 00:26:47.792
kicked off

00:26:48.112 --> 00:26:53.352
me to getting books published in Chicago and New York

00:26:53.472 --> 00:27:00.992
and, uh, figuring out how to market those books around the United States. And having Nautilus behind

00:27:01.052 --> 00:27:04.672
me in the mid-1970s

00:27:05.032 --> 00:27:06.292
helped a great deal.

00:27:06.432 --> 00:27:09.052
So that, uh,

00:27:10.252 --> 00:27:10.472
that,

00:27:10.632 --> 00:27:13.092
that, that just worked for

00:27:13.172 --> 00:27:18.491
me, you know? Yeah. Looking at the timeline of some of your publications, it looked like a lot of your

00:27:18.552 --> 00:27:23.172
early work was involved mostly in bodybuilding. Is that correct?

00:27:25.112 --> 00:27:26.172
Yeah, bodybuilding

00:27:26.272 --> 00:27:28.372
and... It, it's like,

00:27:28.532 --> 00:27:35.592
um, I had a book called The Nautilus Fitness Book, and then another one called The Nautilus Bodybuilding

00:27:35.692 --> 00:27:35.972
Book,

00:27:37.132 --> 00:27:40.052
and both books sold very well,

00:27:40.352 --> 00:27:40.592
but

00:27:41.712 --> 00:27:44.092
people would buy the bodybuilding book.

00:27:45.842 --> 00:27:51.172
They weren't, th- they weren't h- they didn't wanna tell you they were interested in bodybuilding, but they were.

00:27:53.032 --> 00:27:55.132
Y- you know, how many guys do you know

00:27:55.612 --> 00:27:56.892
that want 18-inch

00:27:57.032 --> 00:27:59.312
arms but,

00:27:59.392 --> 00:27:59.812
um,

00:28:00.332 --> 00:28:05.992
a- and would pay huge amounts of money to get 18-inch arms, but they wouldn't tell you that,

00:28:06.112 --> 00:28:08.132
you know? Yeah. But when

00:28:08.172 --> 00:28:13.032
you, when you went back home and they were in the garage, you know, they'd do an extra set of

00:28:13.092 --> 00:28:14.312
curls and chin-ups

00:28:14.372 --> 00:28:19.331
and tricep extensions. You know, if they were gonna do anything, they're gonna work their arms.

00:28:20.992 --> 00:28:21.452
So,

00:28:21.592 --> 00:28:24.312
uh, I learned that early on,

00:28:24.712 --> 00:28:25.072
that,

00:28:25.212 --> 00:28:32.732
uh, that a lot of men were interested in bodybuilding. A lot of boys were interested in bodybuilding.

00:28:33.512 --> 00:28:34.372
So I had,

00:28:34.472 --> 00:28:45.371
uh, several hookups with Chris Lund, who was a famous bodybuilding photographer, and he was as interested

00:28:45.472 --> 00:28:46.892
in the whole concept as

00:28:47.032 --> 00:28:47.652
I was.

00:28:48.612 --> 00:28:51.732
So he would send me

00:28:52.132 --> 00:28:52.272
50

00:28:52.332 --> 00:28:55.952
or 60 just great bodybuilding pictures that he would

00:28:56.032 --> 00:29:00.212
take at the gyms around the country and at the

00:29:01.052 --> 00:29:03.712
various contests, and I would incorporate

00:29:04.412 --> 00:29:06.032
these pictures into my

00:29:06.852 --> 00:29:12.052
bodybuilding books, and then he, uh, eventually, we would bring him into the Nautilus

00:29:12.092 --> 00:29:15.072
headquarters, and he would take pictures

00:29:16.812 --> 00:29:20.292
of, uh, good-looking people on the Nautilus machines.

00:29:21.232 --> 00:29:25.092
So that opened, uh, both doors, you know. It opened doors

00:29:25.212 --> 00:29:27.052
to get, get

00:29:27.192 --> 00:29:33.072
books that were centered around the general population and books that were centered around,

00:29:34.112 --> 00:29:35.212
uh, bodybuilders

00:29:36.292 --> 00:29:41.452
and people who wanted to go in that direction. So it, it was a hot time in the '70s

00:29:41.472 --> 00:29:42.082
and '80s

00:29:42.112 --> 00:29:45.362
for that. Yeah, I think the last few decades,

00:29:45.812 --> 00:29:51.132
right, resistance training gained significant popularity, especially with the publications and then commercial

00:29:51.232 --> 00:29:53.032
gyms. Uh, the

00:29:53.092 --> 00:29:54.092
increase of,

00:29:54.762 --> 00:29:56.992
of the quantity of commercial gyms in the United States- Oh, yeah,

00:29:57.002 --> 00:29:59.972
... and also the adoption of resistance training

00:30:00.072 --> 00:30:04.652
and the inclusion of resistance training equipment in the YMCAs,

00:30:05.252 --> 00:30:08.342
right- Yeah. ... had a heavy influence on the general population.

00:30:08.892 --> 00:30:14.032
And then obviously the, there's the increased interest in athletics, too, and human performance- Yeah ... capability, I think,

00:30:14.172 --> 00:30:14.272
get

00:30:14.292 --> 00:30:15.992
us a lot, drew a lot of people in,

00:30:16.072 --> 00:30:19.012
correct? All- three of those concepts, you know, you

00:30:19.112 --> 00:30:19.772
had, uh,

00:30:20.312 --> 00:30:22.952
we had hundreds, thousands

00:30:23.072 --> 00:30:27.252
of, uh, people that. were opening these Nautilus fitness centers

00:30:27.712 --> 00:30:32.344
and then, like you said, we had the YMCAs-And, and we had,

00:30:32.444 --> 00:30:35.464
uh, just people being more interested

00:30:35.584 --> 00:30:44.964
in aerobics and sports and getting outside and, and, and trying to get fit. So that? all came together

00:30:45.064 --> 00:30:48.204
in the 1970s and 1980s

00:30:49.204 --> 00:30:49.604
at,

00:30:49.704 --> 00:30:50.924
uh, the time?

00:30:51.004 --> 00:30:54.264
that, that I was really into doing

00:30:54.964 --> 00:31:00.124
these studies and the research and the writing as it related to people getting better

00:31:00.144 --> 00:31:03.184
results from what they were doing. Yeah.

00:31:04.224 --> 00:31:07.204
Yeah, absolutely. And two books that jumped out at me when I was looking

00:31:07.244 --> 00:31:11.364
through the list, both were in the '90s for you, Bigger Muscles in 42

00:31:11.424 --> 00:31:15.344
Days- Yeah ... and A Flat Stomach ASAP.

00:31:16.324 --> 00:31:18.924
Yeah. Well, those, uh, those were good selling

00:31:19.004 --> 00:31:20.924
books, and,

00:31:21.024 --> 00:31:21.364
uh,

00:31:22.104 --> 00:31:24.024
I was around people

00:31:24.864 --> 00:31:26.464
who wanted to,

00:31:26.564 --> 00:31:29.524
uh, perform and get better results.

00:31:29.584 --> 00:31:32.444
When in, in 1978,

00:31:32.984 --> 00:31:35.284
being in, uh, Lake Helen, Florida,

00:31:36.464 --> 00:31:39.404
we had people coming through every week that wanted,

00:31:39.544 --> 00:31:45.184
uh, wanted to buy Nautilus equipment. So we had seminars and, and,

00:31:45.264 --> 00:31:51.084
uh, open houses all the times. But one of the guys that came through there? was Joe

00:31:51.164 --> 00:31:56.464
Cerulli, who was in Gainesville, Florida, where the university

00:31:56.624 --> 00:31:59.424
is, the biggest university in Florida,

00:32:00.484 --> 00:32:03.184
and he started a club in 1978,

00:32:04.604 --> 00:32:09.034
and he had over 100 Nautilus machines there. So in visiting

00:32:09.084 --> 00:32:11.454
him and in him visiting

00:32:11.584 --> 00:32:16.204
us, that opened a huge pathway

00:32:16.344 --> 00:32:24.184
for me to go to Gainesville, which was about 100 miles from where I lived in, in, uh, central Florida,

00:32:25.484 --> 00:32:27.164
and get groups of people to go

00:32:27.284 --> 00:32:28.944
through, organized in

00:32:29.004 --> 00:32:32.244
a way that would allow me to,

00:32:32.364 --> 00:32:38.244
uh, train them in specific ways, take before and after pictures and measurements,

00:32:38.784 --> 00:32:40.964
and tie those into the books that I

00:32:41.064 --> 00:32:41.944
wanted to write.

00:32:43.344 --> 00:32:45.864
So the book you mentioned

00:32:46.104 --> 00:32:49.084
with, uh, Bigger Muscles in 42 Days

00:32:49.644 --> 00:32:52.024
was a part of that, and that took place in

00:32:52.104 --> 00:32:56.224
Dallas at] a, at a, uh, big club

00:32:56.304 --> 00:33:00.524
there. And, uh, A Flat Stomach ASAP

00:33:01.264 --> 00:33:03.804
was primarily done in Gainesville, Florida.

00:33:04.034 --> 00:33:07.984
Mm-hmm. So, uh, those were two hot areas, you know, building

00:33:08.024 --> 00:33:12.124
your body, getting rid of your midsection that had fat

00:33:12.184 --> 00:33:12.824
around it.

00:33:13.604 --> 00:33:17.954
Uh, th- those were interesting projects that

00:33:18.024 --> 00:33:20.164
sold hun- hundreds of thousands

00:33:20.204 --> 00:33:20.904
of copies.

00:33:23.084 --> 00:33:27.084
Yes. And then moving forward into the 21st

00:33:27.124 --> 00:33:31.004
century for resistance training, looking at the timeline of your publications once

00:33:31.044 --> 00:33:33.034
again, you then published New

00:33:33.964 --> 00:33:36.084
High Intensity Training and Body

00:33:36.164 --> 00:33:43.294
Fat Breakthrough. It appears now that there was a focus or a transition into things like high intensity interval training,

00:33:43.684 --> 00:33:49.084
eccentric training. Can you talk a little bit about that and how things changed from the '70s, '80s, '90s

00:33:49.124 --> 00:33:49.974
into the 21st

00:33:50.004 --> 00:33:53.964
century? Yeah, I,

00:33:54.044 --> 00:33:58.444
uh, back in the mid-'70s, Arthur Jones

00:33:59.064 --> 00:34:00.964
had done some studies with the

00:34:01.044 --> 00:34:04.124
negative part of exercise, and he was

00:34:04.164 --> 00:34:07.724
convinced that that was an ignored,

00:34:09.284 --> 00:34:09.464
uh,

00:34:11.264 --> 00:34:14.224
training technique that should be incorporated

00:34:14.284 --> 00:34:22.464
more. So we established that back in the '70s, but we didn't have, uh, you know, negative exercise

00:34:23.784 --> 00:34:24.004
or

00:34:24.043 --> 00:34:27.083
ways to accentuate the lowering.

00:34:27.674 --> 00:34:28.884
It's a powerful way,

00:34:29.024 --> 00:34:33.123
and you can, all, of a sudden, you can get too much of it, you know, so you have

00:34:33.164 --> 00:34:34.284
to know what you're doing

00:34:34.824 --> 00:34:36.344
or you can injure yourself.

00:34:37.484 --> 00:34:39.083
Well, it wasn't until, um,

00:34:41.444 --> 00:34:51.043
oh, it was 2008, one of the big Nautilus distributors in Europe contacted me, and he said, "Ellington," he said,

00:34:51.123 --> 00:34:52.123
"I've got a way

00:34:53.284 --> 00:34:54.004
to, uh,

00:34:55.103 --> 00:34:56.004
accentuate

00:34:56.024 --> 00:35:02.064
the lowering. It's much better than anything you did at Nautilus and anything you've done with a barbell."

00:35:03.104 --> 00:35:06.144
So he was in Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden. I went

00:35:06.244 --> 00:35:12.244
over there, and I was amazed at what he'd done with Nautilus machines. He had taken the Nautilus

00:35:13.364 --> 00:35:14.224
concept

00:35:14.384 --> 00:35:17.224
of lifting and lowering on a weight stack

00:35:17.284 --> 00:35:22.104
machine and, uh, put a motor at the bottom and a sensor, and he had

00:35:22.144 --> 00:35:29.184
it tilting. So he could tilt the weight stack to 45 degrees in a half

00:35:29.244 --> 00:35:34.944
a second, which would allow you to lift the resistance with

00:35:35.024 --> 00:35:38.004
less weight, and then he would upright

00:35:39.144 --> 00:35:40.124
the weight stack

00:35:40.504 --> 00:35:44.984
during the lowering. So it gave you 40% more resistance on

00:35:45.024 --> 00:35:52.064
the lowering, and that interested me, a great deal. So I started working with him. He called his

00:35:52.104 --> 00:35:53.404
equipment XForce,

00:35:54.924 --> 00:36:01.544
and Joe Cerulli was the first person in Florida to take that concept and,

00:36:01.684 --> 00:36:11.204
uh, get 15 of these XForce machines in 2012 in Gainesville, Florida. So I did a lot of research

00:36:12.104 --> 00:36:12.834
for the next two

00:36:13.004 --> 00:36:18.124
years there with the XForce concept, and eventually I,

00:36:18.384 --> 00:36:20.124
I, uh, figured

00:36:20.184 --> 00:36:22.944
out ways to apply that same

00:36:23.004 --> 00:36:28.404
concept to barbells and dumbbells and to machines that didn't have

00:36:28.584 --> 00:36:31.024
a motor at the bottom, you know?

00:36:31.184 --> 00:36:39.480
So I think it's pretty well been established today-That, uh, eccentric exercise

00:36:39.560 --> 00:36:44.239
are the negative phase of exercise is the most

00:36:44.360 --> 00:36:46.120
important phase

00:36:46.600 --> 00:36:47.360
of building

00:36:47.460 --> 00:36:49.280
muscle size and strength.

00:36:49.380 --> 00:36:52.000
So you gotta use it correctly,

00:36:53.280 --> 00:36:54.100
and, uh,

00:36:54.620 --> 00:36:58.080
there are people that know how to do that, but there are a lot of people that don't know how

00:36:58.140 --> 00:36:59.100
to do that. So

00:36:59.180 --> 00:37:06.860
it's still a, a, a mystery to a lot of people how to really take advantage of the negative phase

00:37:06.920 --> 00:37:08.000
of exercise. I've

00:37:08.020 --> 00:37:10.220
written about it in a number of books.

00:37:12.820 --> 00:37:17.310
Yeah, and as you consider now the heavy influence of athletics,

00:37:17.380 --> 00:37:17.850
and now,

00:37:18.640 --> 00:37:26.300
you know, in the last 10- years or so you have the takeoff of sports science and data

00:37:27.880 --> 00:37:34.320
and things along those lines, what is that like for you thinking about your early days in Conroe, Texas,

00:37:34.540 --> 00:37:35.060
and now you're

00:37:35.120 --> 00:37:38.700
seeing teams, associations,

00:37:39.340 --> 00:37:43.540
organizations, colleges invest heavily in the technology

00:37:43.580 --> 00:37:46.000
side? Did you ever, think that it would get to this point?

00:37:47.400 --> 00:37:48.040
Oh, probably

00:37:48.180 --> 00:37:48.520
not.

00:37:50.120 --> 00:37:52.980
But you gotta realize

00:37:53.060 --> 00:37:53.240
that

00:37:53.540 --> 00:37:59.840
still the, the whole science of it has been infiltrated

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:02.840
with, uh, a lot of nonsense.

00:38:04.080 --> 00:38:04.380
So,

00:38:06.160 --> 00:38:06.460
um,

00:38:07.940 --> 00:38:09.100
I see, I see,

00:38:09.180 --> 00:38:12.160
uh, when I go around to the various gyms and the various

00:38:12.760 --> 00:38:15.740
colleges and universities that have incorporated

00:38:16.440 --> 00:38:17.180
all this strength

00:38:17.260 --> 00:38:20.480
training, I still see things

00:38:20.540 --> 00:38:23.120
that bother me. You know, it seems like

00:38:23.840 --> 00:38:25.240
you gotta understand

00:38:27.140 --> 00:38:28.220
how to separate

00:38:28.440 --> 00:38:30.000
deep truths

00:38:30.620 --> 00:38:33.020
from deep nonsense, and I still

00:38:33.200 --> 00:38:36.340
see just a lot of deep nonsense

00:38:37.380 --> 00:38:38.300
i- in, uh,

00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:40.100
football and

00:38:40.520 --> 00:38:43.060
basketball and all the training programs

00:38:43.860 --> 00:38:44.000
that

00:38:44.060 --> 00:38:49.060
exist to make athletes bigger and stronger.

00:38:49.200 --> 00:38:49.480
Um,

00:38:51.280 --> 00:38:56.020
it's a mess, and of course, that deep nonsense has always been involved in food and

00:38:56.060 --> 00:38:56.780
nutrition.

00:38:59.040 --> 00:39:04.160
So, uh, you know, a good example is a low carbohydrate diet. That's been around for

00:39:04.980 --> 00:39:06.060
50 years,

00:39:06.900 --> 00:39:08.120
and it was proven

00:39:09.740 --> 00:39:10.200
40 years

00:39:10.240 --> 00:39:17.000
ago that low carbohydrate diets are not very efficient at losing fat.

00:39:18.420 --> 00:39:22.150
But they've continued to be believed in for,

00:39:23.380 --> 00:39:28.000
for the last 40 years, and, uh, Carl Sagan said years ago

00:39:28.100 --> 00:39:31.260
that, uh, once something's been around

00:39:32.020 --> 00:39:35.920
and for 40 years, all of a sudden it becomes the truth,

00:39:36.060 --> 00:39:39.980
you know? So low carbohydrate

00:39:40.020 --> 00:39:44.740
diets, high protein diets are considered to be

00:39:45.200 --> 00:39:45.840
the way

00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:48.420
to lose fat and build muscle,

00:39:49.320 --> 00:39:51.180
and that's just not the case.

00:39:51.580 --> 00:39:53.360
You know, if there's anything

00:39:54.220 --> 00:39:55.440
that athletes

00:39:56.360 --> 00:39:59.300
get more than enough of in their eating,

00:39:59.880 --> 00:40:00.140
it's

00:40:00.180 --> 00:40:07.090
protein. But high protein supplements still remain one of the best-selling

00:40:07.200 --> 00:40:12.130
products that strength coaches and athletes push, you know,

00:40:13.340 --> 00:40:19.020
to get bigger and stronger. You just don't need large amounts of protein to build

00:40:19.080 --> 00:40:24.980
muscle. With all of your experiences on the resistance training side and research, and

00:40:25.020 --> 00:40:26.240
then also in

00:40:27.320 --> 00:40:30.180
the nutrition side, was there one that you always enjoyed

00:40:31.380 --> 00:40:31.940
researching

00:40:33.200 --> 00:40:34.300
more than the other?

00:40:36.780 --> 00:40:37.200
Uh,

00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:41.320
well, I th- I tended

00:40:41.380 --> 00:40:46.120
to, to move in the direction of trying to get rid, talk about, these myths

00:40:47.160 --> 00:40:48.600
and this foolishness

00:40:49.520 --> 00:40:51.900
that continues to be

00:40:52.080 --> 00:40:57.120
around for, especially for the younger athletes, you know? Because

00:40:57.240 --> 00:41:02.200
it is a... You know, strength training itself would have probably

00:41:02.240 --> 00:41:06.080
died in the 1950s and

00:41:06.180 --> 00:41:12.000
'60s if Bob Hoffman and Joe Weider hadn't created,

00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:16.020
you know, high protein products and

00:41:16.360 --> 00:41:21.260
all the various, uh, wheat germ oil and brewer's yeast and all this stuff

00:41:22.160 --> 00:41:22.940
to sell,

00:41:23.060 --> 00:41:26.040
uh, to sell to the teenagers.

00:41:27.960 --> 00:41:28.310
And

00:41:28.720 --> 00:41:30.060
the, the primary reason

00:41:30.140 --> 00:41:34.380
was that how many times, you don't wear out a barbell,

00:41:34.500 --> 00:41:38.100
you know? You buy 100 pounds of barbell plates

00:41:38.720 --> 00:41:38.960
and you

00:41:39.080 --> 00:41:43.320
still got 'em 10, 15, 20 years from now.

00:41:44.520 --> 00:41:44.860
So,

00:41:45.080 --> 00:41:48.380
uh, bringing into the arena

00:41:49.200 --> 00:41:50.560
all the food products

00:41:50.880 --> 00:41:51.860
was the way

00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:57.000
that Bob Hoffman and Joe Weider really made their money. It wasn't

00:41:57.100 --> 00:42:05.180
off of selling strength training equipment. Got it. And shifting gears a little bit,

00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:10.940
in 1989, I believe, you were honored by the President's Council on Physical Fitness

00:42:11.080 --> 00:42:15.340
and Sport as one of the top 10 health leaders in the United States. What was that experience

00:42:15.380 --> 00:42:21.040
like? Well, I got to meet a lot of people who were experts in their area,

00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:25.960
and that was meaningful to me. I made a lot of friends, but when you

00:42:26.060 --> 00:42:33.540
get groups, this President's Council on Physical Fitness and this group that I was a member of had about 75

00:42:33.580 --> 00:42:34.020
to 80

00:42:34.140 --> 00:42:39.880
people that were experts, and when you brought them all together to try to determine

00:42:40.020 --> 00:42:48.132
some, uh, guidelines-You know, you had r- one group that would tell you that the answer was up, one

00:42:48.172 --> 00:42:50.112
group that would say down, one group

00:42:50.192 --> 00:42:53.072
would say east, one group would say west.

00:42:54.132 --> 00:42:54.352
And

00:42:54.472 --> 00:42:56.212
so, uh,

00:42:56.772 --> 00:42:59.612
you never came to any conclusions because

00:43:00.312 --> 00:43:02.012
all the groups were arguing

00:43:03.012 --> 00:43:03.152
to

00:43:03.312 --> 00:43:08.132
favor what they had written books and done research on.

00:43:10.432 --> 00:43:10.912
So,

00:43:11.152 --> 00:43:16.992
uh, y- you know, it's just like the political scene today. You know, when you get all the politicians

00:43:17.032 --> 00:43:19.432
together, they can't decide

00:43:20.872 --> 00:43:26.192
what's right or wrong. They all go in the different directions of their background. So

00:43:26.312 --> 00:43:35.972
it, it leads to misunderstanding and calamity and just very general guidelines, nothing specific

00:43:36.052 --> 00:43:41.152
in the direction of how to do something in the most efficient manner.

00:43:42.532 --> 00:43:45.392
So I've always tried to stick to the basics

00:43:45.492 --> 00:43:45.912
and,

00:43:46.432 --> 00:43:51.492
and try to tell people how to do things efficiently

00:43:53.852 --> 00:43:57.092
and not take years to do something you could do in months.

00:43:59.192 --> 00:44:03.972
Yeah. And considering all your experience in health and fitness and resistance

00:44:04.032 --> 00:44:12.012
training, is there an area that you wish you had spent more time researching or spent more time exploring?

00:44:13.012 --> 00:44:13.312
Yeah.

00:44:14.652 --> 00:44:15.032
Older

00:44:15.092 --> 00:44:18.012
people. You know, I'm almost 80 years

00:44:18.072 --> 00:44:21.152
of age now, and, uh,

00:44:22.092 --> 00:44:23.132
of course I'm interested

00:44:23.192 --> 00:44:23.592
in

00:44:24.012 --> 00:44:26.352
you know, what's going on in my own body.

00:44:27.312 --> 00:44:28.882
But wh- when, when I was

00:44:29.132 --> 00:44:29.232
30,

00:44:29.552 --> 00:44:33.592
40, and 50, I wasn't interested in the older population,

00:44:34.512 --> 00:44:37.192
and I wish I was. I wish, um,

00:44:38.132 --> 00:44:38.232
I

00:44:38.312 --> 00:44:45.132
had, uh, been motivated to work with people in that age group more. Now, there,

00:44:46.152 --> 00:44:46.172
uh,

00:44:46.552 --> 00:44:48.832
you know, there's some stuff that's being done in it

00:44:49.092 --> 00:44:57.412
now, but, but it's still scanty, you know. It still needs to be explored in greater detail.

00:44:59.172 --> 00:45:02.172
So I wish I'd have done that now, you know. I wish I'd have done that

00:45:02.312 --> 00:45:06.172
then. Yeah, and that's a great lead in

00:45:06.232 --> 00:45:08.272
to our last question

00:45:09.072 --> 00:45:09.372
today,

00:45:09.472 --> 00:45:14.152
which is, what is your own fitness routine like these days?

00:45:14.932 --> 00:45:19.072
You've, I imagine over the years you've done a lot of different routines. You've taken part in a lot

00:45:19.112 --> 00:45:19.172
of

00:45:19.212 --> 00:45:21.412
different types of training prescriptions

00:45:22.472 --> 00:45:23.972
and methodologies. How about

00:45:24.092 --> 00:45:28.911
now? As you just mentioned, you wish you had done some research and training in the longevity

00:45:29.012 --> 00:45:35.552
space. Yeah, well- What is your fitness routine like now? I learned, uh, you know, I learned in the 1970s

00:45:35.592 --> 00:45:42.132
that harder but briefer exercise was better when it comes to muscle building and

00:45:42.212 --> 00:45:44.892
strength training. And, uh,

00:45:45.152 --> 00:45:49.132
initially, you know, I would spend an hour in the gym,

00:45:49.912 --> 00:45:57.032
and eventually I cut that down after I got involved with Nautilus and Arthur Jones and high intensity training

00:45:58.172 --> 00:45:58.452
to

00:45:59.152 --> 00:45:59.992
20 to 30

00:46:00.052 --> 00:46:01.972
minutes two or three times

00:46:02.052 --> 00:46:06.812
a week. Uh, I remember Arthur Jones said one time, he said, "It took me

00:46:07.012 --> 00:46:11.472
20 years to learn that two sets

00:46:12.852 --> 00:46:17.042
of 10 exercises or eight to 10 exercises were better than

00:46:17.072 --> 00:46:23.172
four sets." And he said, "It also took me another 20 years to realize

00:46:23.952 --> 00:46:29.012
that one set, of eight exercises was better than two sets. of, e-

00:46:29.592 --> 00:46:30.672
eight exercises."

00:46:30.752 --> 00:46:37.012
So he said, "It took me 40 years to realize that harder and briefer exercise was

00:46:37.052 --> 00:46:37.952
the way to go."

00:46:39.232 --> 00:46:49.132
But can you get that across to general population who wants to believe that there's secrets

00:46:50.032 --> 00:46:55.932
to exercise and diet, and that probably more exercise is better than less

00:46:56.012 --> 00:47:01.392
exercise? So my routine today is I do,

00:47:01.492 --> 00:47:07.972
um, I do six or eight exercises two or three times a week, one set, and that's about

00:47:08.012 --> 00:47:12.042
it. Very So I wish I'd

00:47:12.092 --> 00:47:17.152
have learned that way back there. You know, it would've saved me some time and effort, and I could

00:47:17.192 --> 00:47:19.212
have probably written more

00:47:19.252 --> 00:47:21.132
books. Yeah.

00:47:21.842 --> 00:47:25.052
And are you still using those plates and barbells and racks that you made

00:47:25.112 --> 00:47:28.332
in high school? No. It's interesting.

00:47:28.632 --> 00:47:28.992
I had

00:47:29.032 --> 00:47:33.232
a... I sold all my stuff in Conroe to a buddy

00:47:34.452 --> 00:47:39.532
for $100, I think, in about 1974,

00:47:41.092 --> 00:47:43.192
and eventually we hired

00:47:43.252 --> 00:47:46.172
him to work for Nautilus.

00:47:47.352 --> 00:47:53.081
So he took my 500 or 600 pounds of barbells and dumbbells and

00:47:53.112 --> 00:47:57.292
a bench or two, put them in a trailer, and hauled them to Florida.

00:47:59.162 --> 00:47:59.552
And

00:48:01.692 --> 00:48:06.492
that was in 1978 or '9,

00:48:07.792 --> 00:48:11.092
and we had a sports medicine clinic at Nautilus,

00:48:12.292 --> 00:48:17.512
and we started working with some athletes at Bethune-Cookman College

00:48:18.232 --> 00:48:19.352
in Daytona Beach.

00:48:21.212 --> 00:48:26.232
And my buddy, Ken Hutchins was his name, he had all these barbells,

00:48:26.792 --> 00:48:29.962
so he took them over at Bethune-Cookman College and

00:48:30.052 --> 00:48:33.112
started training their football team

00:48:33.172 --> 00:48:35.952
with them. And Ken told me,

00:48:36.032 --> 00:48:38.992
he said, "Well, unfortunately, we didn't have

00:48:39.072 --> 00:48:43.132
good, a good setup over there where we could lock everything up."

00:48:43.172 --> 00:48:45.092
He said, "All the, all the equipment

00:48:45.172 --> 00:48:51.124
was stolen within the first three months."So somewhere

00:48:51.184 --> 00:48:56.004
today, you know, you can't wear out barbells and dumbbells. So somewhere today

00:48:57.004 --> 00:48:57.944
in Daytona Beach,

00:48:58.044 --> 00:49:01.364
Florida, is my old strength training equipment

00:49:02.504 --> 00:49:04.024
probably being used

00:49:04.924 --> 00:49:05.324
by,

00:49:05.444 --> 00:49:11.124
uh, some youngsters that are interested. in bui- becoming bigger and stronger.

00:49:13.864 --> 00:49:14.184
Yeah.

00:49:15.344 --> 00:49:20.104
And last question today that I have for you, moving forward, where do you think the field of health

00:49:20.124 --> 00:49:24.004
and fitness goes, or where do you hope to see it go over the next 20 to 30 years?

00:49:26.024 --> 00:49:32.224
Well, it seems like things are moving in the direction of computerized exercise. Uh,

00:49:34.284 --> 00:49:35.964
a- and as you've experienced

00:49:36.044 --> 00:49:37.204
here, um,

00:49:38.344 --> 00:49:38.464
or

00:49:38.564 --> 00:49:40.424
I've, as I've experienced,

00:49:41.844 --> 00:49:43.024
at 80 years of

00:49:43.184 --> 00:49:48.804
age, nobody wants to publish a book that I can write today. In fact,

00:49:49.084 --> 00:49:52.244
books, from, from what I read now,

00:49:53.923 --> 00:49:56.304
uh, when, when I started writing books

00:49:57.784 --> 00:49:59.324
in the '70s and '80s,

00:50:00.304 --> 00:50:01.104
I read there were

00:50:01.864 --> 00:50:04.044
1,500 bookstores

00:50:04.684 --> 00:50:05.944
in New York City at

00:50:06.024 --> 00:50:09.164
that time, and still

00:50:09.844 --> 00:50:13.304
today, most of the books are sold in New York

00:50:14.004 --> 00:50:15.024
that get published,

00:50:15.764 --> 00:50:18.304
and most of them are sold in New York City.

00:50:19.584 --> 00:50:19.904
But

00:50:20.244 --> 00:50:20.384
those

00:50:20.764 --> 00:50:26.764
1,500 bookstores in New York City, I think, have been reduced to about 300.

00:50:28.564 --> 00:50:32.004
Why would somebody want to buy a book on strength training

00:50:32.084 --> 00:50:34.144
today when you've got

00:50:34.964 --> 00:50:36.044
hundreds of

00:50:37.124 --> 00:50:38.504
free websites

00:50:39.184 --> 00:50:41.524
about strength training and bodybuilding

00:50:42.084 --> 00:50:42.244
where

00:50:42.324 --> 00:50:45.084
you can get all kinds of information?

00:50:45.164 --> 00:50:48.054
Now, like I was talking about, it's, uh,

00:50:50.484 --> 00:50:52.204
it's deep nonsense. Most

00:50:52.244 --> 00:50:57.164
of the material you read about strength training and bodybuilding on the internet,

00:50:58.424 --> 00:51:04.004
50% of it is deep nonsense. It's just, uh, you, you gotta attract someone to

00:51:04.084 --> 00:51:08.264
your, your website or your podcast or whatever you're doing,

00:51:09.984 --> 00:51:12.984
and you have to have something that's new

00:51:13.044 --> 00:51:15.944
and different, not old and

00:51:16.044 --> 00:51:19.164
ordinary. But like I'm,

00:51:19.684 --> 00:51:23.124
my pitch today is that the old ordinary

00:51:23.284 --> 00:51:26.684
stuff from the 1950s and '60s,

00:51:27.884 --> 00:51:30.764
it's just like a barbell and a dumbbell. It's still

00:51:31.024 --> 00:51:35.504
usable. You can still get really good results

00:51:35.924 --> 00:51:39.124
from barbells and dumbbells if you use them correctly.

00:51:39.904 --> 00:51:42.324
Unfortunately, most people don't use them correctly.

00:51:43.164 --> 00:51:48.404
And you can still get good results from Nautilus machines or any type of exercise machine,

00:51:49.024 --> 00:51:49.964
if it's in working

00:51:50.064 --> 00:51:51.964
condition, if you use

00:51:52.044 --> 00:51:54.994
it properly, which means use

00:51:55.044 --> 00:51:57.244
it harder, briefer,

00:51:58.564 --> 00:51:58.964
with,

00:51:59.084 --> 00:52:05.244
uh, perhaps a slower speed of movement. Don't slam and bang and try to see how much you can lift

00:52:05.324 --> 00:52:06.304
one or two times.

00:52:08.044 --> 00:52:08.244
Yeah.

00:52:09.284 --> 00:52:11.324
Well, great, Dr. Darden. I, I appreciate

00:52:11.404 --> 00:52:18.324
you joining me today and spending some time to- Sure ... give a little bit of a historical view on

00:52:18.384 --> 00:52:24.074
fitness and health and resistance training and sharing some stories. I know. I w- I wrote a lot of names

00:52:24.104 --> 00:52:30.044
down, a lot of people that I wanna go, uh, look up now. and, and, uh, read some stories about,

00:52:30.104 --> 00:52:35.134
so I appreciate that and definitely invigorating, at least from a historical

00:52:35.184 --> 00:52:43.024
perspective, uh, and, and augmenting our appreciation for the historical side of health and physical culture. Yeah, well,

00:52:43.064 --> 00:52:45.084
you know, one more thing. I think I told

00:52:45.144 --> 00:52:47.964
you early on, I have a 20-year-old

00:52:48.124 --> 00:52:50.164
son who

00:52:50.284 --> 00:52:51.153
is, he's

00:52:51.424 --> 00:52:52.924
6'4" and weighs about

00:52:53.084 --> 00:52:57.444
200 pounds, and he's stronger than I ever was.

00:52:58.904 --> 00:53:03.104
But he oughta be, because I've trained him since he was about three years of age.

00:53:03.704 --> 00:53:06.924
Yeah. But he's at Florida State University, and he helps

00:53:07.084 --> 00:53:13.064
the, uh, basketball strength training coach there. He puts the basketball

00:53:13.144 --> 00:53:15.084
players through a lot of their

00:53:15.124 --> 00:53:18.144
workouts. But,

00:53:18.264 --> 00:53:19.024
uh, if you

00:53:19.104 --> 00:53:24.144
talk to him, he's got... He could've been a bodybuilder probably,

00:53:24.264 --> 00:53:28.004
a good one, if he was interested. But he wasn't

00:53:28.104 --> 00:53:32.884
interested in bodybuilding anywhere close to the same extent that

00:53:33.164 --> 00:53:35.044
I was. And

00:53:35.344 --> 00:53:38.264
if you've followed bodybuilding recently,

00:53:39.384 --> 00:53:42.964
it's a good thing he wasn't interested, because he'd, he'd have

00:53:43.024 --> 00:53:47.204
to, uh, move to California and get involved in all the drugs

00:53:47.264 --> 00:53:55.844
and all the, the deep nonsense, you know? So I'm glad he's not interested in bodybuilding. He's interested in, in

00:53:56.004 --> 00:54:03.224
finance and business. But he, uh, he works, he works with people who are interested in strength training.

00:54:03.304 --> 00:54:06.714
So anyway, I thought I'd drop that in, you know? If I had it- Of course

00:54:07.004 --> 00:54:13.284
... to do over again, I don't know, if I'd go through the bodybuilding and strength training area or not.

00:54:14.384 --> 00:54:16.204
Yeah. Well, it's cool to see at least- I'd get- out of it now.

00:54:16.774 --> 00:54:17.184
Yeah.

00:54:17.684 --> 00:54:17.884
Well,

00:54:18.604 --> 00:54:21.044
it's cool to see at least that passion for it and, and,

00:54:22.984 --> 00:54:27.194
the drive for, for learning more, especially in- Yeah ... human performance is shared

00:54:27.784 --> 00:54:34.024
through a generation, uh, for the Dardens. So we appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, appreciate your time very much

00:54:34.064 --> 00:54:37.084
today, and, uh, looking forward to connecting with you soon

00:54:37.144 --> 00:54:40.004
again. You bet, Gabe. Thank you for having

00:54:40.044 --> 00:54:42.284
me on. Yeah, you got it