June 24, 2024 • 27 mins
In this special episode, Tom is thrilled to speak with Elaine LaLanne, the wife of the legendary fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne. Elaine shares delightful stories and personal anecdotes from their life together, highlighting Jack's incredible legacy and his groundbreaking contributions to the fitness world.
Elaine reminisces about Jack's early days in television, his iconic fitness inventions, and his unwavering dedication to helping people lead healthier lives. She also discusses the upcoming event to honor Jack's memory: a world record attempt for the most people doing jumping jacks simultaneously.
Listeners will be inspired by Elaine's own fitness journey and her motivational insights on maintaining a healthy lifestyle at any age. Don't miss this heartwarming and informative episode celebrating the life and legacy of Jack LaLanne.
Register Today to Break the World Record & Make History on July 12, 2024! • Registration Link to Join Elaine & Fitness Stars in Person at IDEA World in LA and Participate in the World Record attempt: https://bit.ly/IDEAJLJJC • Registration Link to Join JLJJC Remotely (from anywhere!) and Participate via Live Streaming: https://bit.ly/JumpingJackChallenge
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I could not be more excited. I always say this. I have the greatest job in the
world. And my idol was and is Jack LaLanne.
And we'll talk a lot about that. And I have a lot of stuff to show you,
Elaine, from your husband.
And I have two now favorite interviews. And this is one of the top two.
(00:20):
So thank you for joining us.
Well, thank you for inviting me, for goodness sakes. And it was such a pleasure because I did.
Tom Holland. My goodness. I had from him in years.
So let me just backtrack for people who haven't listened to my old show.
So many, many years ago, I had a radio show live on Saturdays for an hour.
(00:42):
And I reached out to you and your husband thinking there's no way they're going to say yes.
And not only did you say yes, and Jack joined me for almost a full hour on a Saturday live.
And to this day, it's one of of my greatest experiences.
Jack used to say, my wife likes to run. She likes to run up my bills and run off with the mouth.
(01:05):
And we ran off with the mouth, or he ran off with the mouth.
I have a similar wife, and she was producing my show back then.
And that's how you met. That's something I just learned. You were producing TV and Jack Naiman.
Is that the first Honey, I started in 1948 when television first came into being.
(01:28):
And I did a show called The Les Molloy Show.
And what I was doing, I was showing those 45 record players.
Some lady said to me, could I get Perry Como?
I mean, could I get Bing Crosby? me, I said, no, you can get Perry Cobo,
(01:49):
but he just sounds just like him.
And this Les Maliky Moore, and he said, I'm starting a television show.
Hour and a half every day, we'll have the ABC 12 Beats Orchestra and interviews and whatnot.
And I talked to him. He said, do you think you can do it?
I didn't know what I was doing, but I said, yes.
(02:10):
Whoops. And so that's what happened.
And I got a call one day, got this guy who could do push-ups for your whole
show, 90 minutes, 430 to 6.
Television didn't come on. It came on at 430 in those days.
And so guess who it was, Jack, doing push-ups for 90 minutes.
(02:32):
That might be some kind
of a record but i don't know we never counted i'm sure
and let me just pull out one of my many so this was
and is one of my favorite hat oh yeah
you know what if your fit
wears out and my i have several
friends and said it's where it's wearing out so
(02:54):
i sent him another one it's on
our website but that's all hand you know that's uh
all hand undone you know is that i mean it is a quality quality hand embroidered
or not hand embroidered but it's embroidered and people who know me away give
me things including i had parents of a friend of mine who shared and these are part of my collection.
(03:20):
Cassette. Cassette workouts. What are they? They are cassettes.
And I will never let these go.
So we have help for your hips and thighs, help for your chest,
line, face, and neck, and help for your waist and leg.
Those were records in those days. Right. Amazing.
(03:44):
And one final thing. They're all my favorites, but this is on my gym wall.
One of my most cherished. Get it back here. Oh, that's one of my favorite.
That's one of my favorite pictures. Yeah.
Signed it too to you, right? He signed it with the night, you know, to my friend, Tom.
Workout always. You're great. Your friend. You know, amazing.
(04:08):
Amazing. So I have to share those with you. When we were on,
when we were lecturing and stuff, he would wait. If we didn't have to catch
a plane, he would go to spend hours with people.
And then sometimes I'd have to say, Jack, we got to go. We got to go.
We got to catch a plane. But I said, just write your name and just say, you know. He said, no.
(04:34):
He goes, to my friend. What do you do?
And I said, Jack, we got to go.
Amazing. He's always interested in every person that came up to him. Yes. Yes.
There's so many people. I'm in my mid-50s now. You're amazing, 98 years young.
(04:57):
And we need to continue to teach people about Jack's legacy. So talk about that.
Well, you know what? Speaking of his legacy. The book, right?
I got this. Oh, I got to send you one of these. I just knocked that over.
Anyway, this was Jack's writings. I got a whole bunch of his writings.
(05:20):
Yes. And Greg Justice said to me,
You know, you should write a book about him, about his legacy.
I said, well, I got a bunch of writings.
And so that's what we did. We took his writings.
See, he believed that everything starts between your ears. The mind is a mind.
(05:42):
It's full of diamonds. And all you have to do is dig them up.
And so that's what Jack was all about.
He was about the mind and the body. You know, people say, oh, boy, what a body.
And I say, honey, I didn't fall in love with his body. I fell in love with his brain.
So this is about me when I started in television.
(06:07):
This is about Jack. It's about our family. It's about Arnold and all sorts of
people, Denise Austin and Keith Morrison.
And I mean they all at the end of the
book they all say something about Jack anyway but this
is kind of his legacy but his that's what I
want to do a lot of young people have no idea who's Jack LaLanne what's Jack
(06:33):
LaLanne what is he all about and so sometimes I just say go onto our website
jacklaillane.com and you'll find out about him oh I didn't know he swam I didn't
know he pull those boats.
I didn't know he swam from Alcatraz, handcuffed and shackled and all that stuff.
(06:53):
He has quite a legacy. He invented the first leg extension machine.
He invented the first squat machine. It's called the Smith machine now.
Then he invited the first weight selector, wall pulleys. He's,
you know, and so there's... But he...
(07:15):
He didn't toot his horn that much. You think he tooted his horn.
He just, he, he believes so strongly.
My God, you think you, you, you heard a lot of stuff when you interviewed him.
Well, you should, we had it every night at the dinner table.
I mean, he lived, breathed in that, you know, worked out two hours every day.
(07:41):
Went in this pool one hour in the gym
and oh my gosh i i listened elaine
to a bunch of your prior interviews and
there was one gentleman who asked you about your
routines you know it was about a year or two ago and he said do you work out
with a trainer and your response was i had the greatest trainer for 50 plus
(08:01):
years i thought that was so great that's true i i learned everything from jack I used to say, my gosh,
I learned this through osmosis. Right.
The greatest trainer you could possibly have. Yeah.
And if you hear it every day, every day, 24 hours a day, you learn a lot.
(08:25):
Because, yeah, it's believable. The preface of the book I love,
Jack said in Pride and Discipline, The Legacy of Jack LaWayne that you just held up.
The preface is Jack's words. And he says, people have to take responsibility
for themselves and do something about it. They have to have pride and discipline.
If you have these two elements, you won't fail in life's endeavors.
(08:47):
Amazing. Where'd you find that? That is the preface.
I love it. That is true. That's true. That's exactly what he said.
And you know how many times I heard that too?
But I also love that you said, Elaine, in one of the interviews,
you said it's not what you do some of the time that counts.
(09:08):
It's what you do most of the time that counts. Right. That's right.
That's exactly right. And that's it. I use the term, and again,
this is from learning from your husband and learning from you.
I use the term excessive moderation.
Don't do a lot of exercise a little bit. Do a little bit a lot.
Do you know that the first thing that stuck with me all my life,
(09:31):
that's probably one of the first things he told me, that if you do everything
in moderation, you can't go wrong.
So that's what I do, everything in moderation.
And I saw you, Elaine, again in a video about a year ago, doing jackknives.
You were doing 10 jackknives. I can do 20.
(09:53):
I can prove it.
Are you sure you can? And I'm down on the floor right now because somebody had
to pull me up because I have a bone-on-bone leg.
But, boy, I do them in the bed. I have a...
Table and I could get on and I could do the jackknives but
(10:13):
I do every morning I do I can't touch
my toes but I can I can touch my ankles
you know that's pretty good for 98 years old and I know people are going to
ask you said you do that every morning can you just give us like your daily
I'm sure it changes but your workout routine yeah I you know in the morning
(10:34):
I get up I mean, when I wake up, I go,
you know, when you get older, everything tightens up.
And so I do a lot of this because I find that this is getting tight. So I do a lot of this.
I do a lot of my, I put my, put your hands underneath your, don't,
(10:57):
not hard, just on those bones.
And then just really light, open and close your eyes. Feel those muscles working?
Put them right here. Here, put your fingers right on here. Okay,
now open. Can you feel those muscles?
Sure. 55 muscles in your face. You got to think about them too.
So start from here and go on down. And so,
(11:20):
and I do, you know, a lot of this and I get up and I do the knees in the chest
and I do leg, you know, put my leg out to the back and all that stuff.
So and then i i i'm not
as good as i used to be i have to admit you know but
i but i do the best like i i quote jack i do the best i can with the equipment
(11:44):
i have and speaking of that elaine i love the videos of your home gym it's it's
the basics right it's it's it's nothing fancy i'm I'm sure you've had it for decades,
but it's what it was. Oh, honey, it's so old. You didn't see, right?
I have the original spot machine. It's all put together and welded.
(12:08):
And then I had the leg extension, which is the same thing, welded.
And I still have it. Get in there. I do, you know, I can put my,
you know, do the leg extensions.
And so I just keep moving. I'm not giving up.
Anybody that's listening to this today, I think that if you are starting to
(12:33):
give up and you think you're getting old, you're never too old, ever.
I'm still learning and I'm still trying new stuff.
I'm still learning stuff about my body. I discovered, Oh, if I do this,
this will happen, you know, so it's amazing.
So just keep going and don't ever, ever give up.
(12:57):
You're never told to start, right? And the research says that, Elaine.
Actually, when you start later in life, you get the results really quickly because
your body's not used to it. And that's a great thing.
There's no doubt. And, you know, the trouble is the first time I ever did the
leg lunges, you know, I was I let myself go for a while.
(13:19):
And then since I swam in the Minneapolis Aquafallies in the 40s and then I didn't do anything.
And then until I met Jack and had this class and he had me doing I had me doing these these leg lunges.
I said, oh, this is easy. I'm going. Oh, my gosh. gosh, I couldn't walk.
Oh my gosh, I was so sore the next day. So you don't overdo,
(13:43):
like Jack used to say, you don't eat 100 apples a day, do you?
Right, right, right. I always say, you know, extremes are actually easier.
It's the consistency of the basics, right? That really, really works over time.
Right. You know, I have a, speaking of consistency, I have an arch that I live by.
(14:05):
Attitude. Always have a good attitude. You are your attitude.
So if you're negative, well, we all know it.
You want a positive person to talk to. And then that is an art.
Okay. Let me start with the art.
(14:26):
And then the art is for resistance. Resisting the food that's undermining your body, you know.
Know, but resistance also builds muscle,
so if I just touch this, like this muscle's not working, now I still have a
little muscle left here,
you know, and so if I close and come up very slow, you'll see this muscle working, so now that's AR,
(14:57):
okay, C is for consistency, being consistent in everything that you do.
In other words, being consistent in eating and not overdoing,
being consistent in exercise, having a routine.
So that's my arc. And my son said, why don't you add H on it and exercise?
(15:21):
H would be for harmony. So that gives you harmony if you go through all those things.
And I loved your mission with Jack. One great line I have, you know,
ingrained in my head, Elaine, is that Jack said, I want to help people help
themselves. Oh, I love that line.
(15:41):
That's true. We have a podcast. We ought to have you on sometime. time.
Greg Justice and I, we have a podcast and it's called Pass It On.
Because people would say, Jack, I really appreciate what you've done for me.
And he says, just pass it on.
So we have a Pass It On podcast.
(16:01):
Instantly, I want to know what you want, yours, disrupted. What do you mean by disrupted?
Just going against the conventional, the shortcuts, the fads,
all that kind of stuff You know, it's the truth.
And when we talk about consistency and moderation, that doesn't necessarily
(16:21):
sell books, Elaine, right?
They don't want to hear about moderation, but that's what works.
Yeah, that's another thing I've learned.
Right but before i have to
say one more time because the young kids and the don't
understand you touched on it but jack literally
invented just about everything you touched on a couple the leg extension resistance
(16:44):
bands right resistance the glamour stretcher we had we had this glamour stretcher
and and we sold tons of glamour stretchers in the in the 60s the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
And he has a great, I don't think you can see it, but I have a picture of the
(17:06):
wall up there. And we had it on record.
It's way back. See that round record up there?
Yeah, that's the whole thing on Glamour Structure. Instant Breakfast, that was Jack's idea.
So that's where I was going to go to as well. Like protein bars,
Jack was doing it first. On the protein bars, yeah.
(17:27):
Oh, my gosh. And one thing I tell my kids is, you know, again,
we're talking the 50s, how people believed that exercise, especially for sports,
would be a bad thing, would be a negative.
And Jack was saying, no, this isn't going to help your performance.
But he used to have to give people keys to his gym, I read.
And then he used to have to sneak in because coaches didn't want people doing
(17:50):
it. Right. I had a friend who was a golfer. And she was a...
I guess I forget what title she had, but her coach would not let her work out with weights.
And that's Jackie Jensen, who was a baseball player, and he won a lot of titles.
(18:14):
And he had to come into Jack's, this was years ago, had to come into Jack's
gym with a key early in the morning to work out so his coaches would never hear about him working out.
But now, look, everything has turned around.
And we're talking decades for people to truly believe what Jack knew,
(18:37):
you know, back in the 50s and earlier.
When I was starting to work out, they said, well, women would get muscles like men, you know.
And so I got muscle tone, but, you know, it really toned up my body.
And really, I didn't look like a band, you know.
(19:00):
So I was a tomboy when I was young, you know.
My neighbor used to say, when is Elaine going to become a lady?
You know, at 13, I was still climbing trees.
Probably to this day. Let's talk about the big event that's coming up in July.
(19:23):
Yeah. Yes. Well, you know, Jack, for 34 years on television,
every morning, guess what?
And a silhouette would come up and they can see it on Jackalane.com.
You can just go in there and you're going to see him just jumping in his silhouette.
He would do the jumping jacks. This is the Jackalane show.
(19:47):
And then, you know, then he'd come on and, hi, boys and girls,
go get your mommy and go get your daddy. and bring him to the television and
happy he'll do a trick for you. Okay, something like that, you know.
And so we heard...
Now, every year I do this for IdeaFit convention.
(20:11):
Since Jack died, they gave an award to him for someone who's inspired the world to fitness.
So every year since then, I have been giving away this Jacqueline award.
Well, this year, not only I'm going to give away the award to Galad Jackowitz,
the Bodies in Motion, but we're going
(20:34):
to have a jumping jack contest and
you know what it's good we're going to beat the poland
record of 2251 jumping jacks
done simultaneously and we're going to do it at the idea fit convention july
12th at one o'clock down in los angeles at the now if you can't come down there.
(21:01):
We want you to come down, but you have to.
How are we going to know if you don't sign up, how are we going to know that
you're going to do the jumping jacks?
So we have to have you sign up.
So now we want you to sign up if you're going to come down to the Convention
Center on July 12th at 1 o'clock at the West Hall of the Convention Center.
(21:24):
And then we're going to do Oh, I've got Arnold, let's see.
Mark Wahlberg, he's in Australia doing a movie, and he's going to give us a little pep talk.
And we've got the Marines flag,
you know, the color guard, and then we've got a whole bunch of people.
(21:47):
Denise Austin, you know the personality she has.
She's going to be down there getting everybody jumping. And we're going to have
Tony Horton and Billy Blanks and Kathy Smith and Lisey Green and,
oh, my God, Todd Durkin, Dan Isaacson. Oh, my goodness.
And, of course, a lot will be there and a whole bunch more.
(22:10):
And you're going to shatter it, Elaine, right? So it's like 5,000 people you're hoping for.
Well, I hope so. But if they don't sign up, how in the heck are we going to know?
We've got to have you sign up for it at ideafit.com. You can sign up at jacqueline.com too.
(22:30):
And then we really would love to have you jump with us.
There's going to be a whole lot of jumping going on.
And maybe you will and if you're you know i don't
care if it's your seattle or you're in alaska or
you can still get your group together or you
could do it and just but sign in that you're
(22:52):
going to be jumping you know so i'm going to put all those links away in the
description of this podcast so people will be able to click right on it i'm
going to be joining you virtually i can't be out there this year so i will be
jumping with you and i will and i will get as many people as I can,
but I will share those links.
So again, people, you can be part of this world record. And then you can always
(23:16):
say, I was part of that, you know?
Exactly. I have a Guinness record for jumping with Elaine Lillane and all of
the incredible people you just outlined.
What a great way to honor the memory of Jack and spread the word,
as you said, to keep paying it forward.
Yes, I appreciate it. It's so much.
(23:36):
I'm so excited to be on your show again.
Well, Jack was on your show, but we talked on the phone a lot.
We did. And you spoke with my wife. She was so tickled when I said,
can you believe after all these years, we're coming around again and I can speak
with Elaine. I think we spoke with you at the very end.
(23:57):
Amazing. So amazing. So thank you. I know you are so busy.
So again, I'm going to share all that information away. And along with the book,
too, everyone needs to get the book.
Yeah and then i've before
that i've been writing books for the last six seven
years i'm i've got one that's it's
called if you wanna live moo putting the boom back into boomers i wrote with
(24:21):
jamie brinkus he's the one that does the eight minute eight minute workout you
know and that is a great day get you on your way all right one more thing and
then i have one final You know, but Jack,
I asked him way back, I'll never forget.
I said, what's one of his, what's one of your go-to foods?
And he said, hard-boiled eggs. Love the hard-boiled eggs. What's one of your?
(24:43):
He was, he'd have these hard-boiled eggs and, but he'd not, he'd eat,
no, he wouldn't eat the centers. He'd only eat the whites.
And then, and so he never, he didn't not, he didn't tell me I can't have them,
but he just ate the whites.
He said, they've only got, I forget how many calories in the whites,
(25:05):
and a lot of less calories in the whites.
Is that one of your built-in foods, Elaine? Do you still eat those?
Is that something you enjoy?
Yeah, I'm not one who has them every day, but I enjoy hard-boiled eggs. Okay.
A lot of times, you know, and I'm in a hurry, and I went, oh, my gosh.
(25:28):
So I always keep hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator, and then I can go in
for lunch or something and have a little maybe glass of milk.
I have the lactate milk and
a hard-boiled egg and maybe a
– i don't eat much bread but i
do eat bread i i pretty much
(25:50):
eat everything and meat i don't eat a lot
of meat but and it's just everything
everything in my moderation i was waiting for you to say it elaine all right
it's been such a pleasure i want to do this again again everybody july 12th
i will put all the information in the podcast description you'll be able to
(26:11):
click right write on the link, sign up.
I want to leave. So, Elaine, on many of my podcasts, I end the show with words of your husband.
So this is one of the clips I play at the end of just about every podcast. Here we go.
I hope that each and every one of you wonderful people who are listening to
Tom, the great show, will do something for the most important person on the earth, you.
(26:37):
Makes me so happy to have that. and to have him mention me by name.
Thank you, Sharon.
So thank you again. I have two favorite interviews and I've done many and it's
you and it's your husband.
Thank you for all that you do. I look forward to joining you on July 12th and
(27:00):
everyone, you have to join us as well. Thank you, Elaine. Have a great day.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I could not be more excited. I always say this. I have the greatest job in the
world. And my idol was and is Jack LaLanne.
And we'll talk a lot about that. And I have a lot of stuff to show you,
Elaine, from your husband.
And I have two now favorite interviews. And this is one of the top two.
(00:20):
So thank you for joining us.
Well, thank you for inviting me, for goodness sakes. And it was such a pleasure because I did.
Tom Holland. My goodness. I had from him in years.
So let me just backtrack for people who haven't listened to my old show.
So many, many years ago, I had a radio show live on Saturdays for an hour.
(00:42):
And I reached out to you and your husband thinking there's no way they're going to say yes.
And not only did you say yes, and Jack joined me for almost a full hour on a Saturday live.
And to this day, it's one of of my greatest experiences.
Jack used to say, my wife likes to run. She likes to run up my bills and run off with the mouth.
(01:05):
And we ran off with the mouth, or he ran off with the mouth.
I have a similar wife, and she was producing my show back then.
And that's how you met. That's something I just learned. You were producing TV and Jack Naiman.
Is that the first Honey, I started in 1948 when television first came into being.
(01:28):
And I did a show called The Les Molloy Show.
And what I was doing, I was showing those 45 record players.
Some lady said to me, could I get Perry Como?
I mean, could I get Bing Crosby? me, I said, no, you can get Perry Cobo,
(01:49):
but he just sounds just like him.
And this Les Maliky Moore, and he said, I'm starting a television show.
Hour and a half every day, we'll have the ABC 12 Beats Orchestra and interviews and whatnot.
And I talked to him. He said, do you think you can do it?
I didn't know what I was doing, but I said, yes.
(02:10):
Whoops. And so that's what happened.
And I got a call one day, got this guy who could do push-ups for your whole
show, 90 minutes, 430 to 6.
Television didn't come on. It came on at 430 in those days.
And so guess who it was, Jack, doing push-ups for 90 minutes.
(02:32):
That might be some kind
of a record but i don't know we never counted i'm sure
and let me just pull out one of my many so this was
and is one of my favorite hat oh yeah
you know what if your fit
wears out and my i have several
friends and said it's where it's wearing out so
(02:54):
i sent him another one it's on
our website but that's all hand you know that's uh
all hand undone you know is that i mean it is a quality quality hand embroidered
or not hand embroidered but it's embroidered and people who know me away give
me things including i had parents of a friend of mine who shared and these are part of my collection.
(03:20):
Cassette. Cassette workouts. What are they? They are cassettes.
And I will never let these go.
So we have help for your hips and thighs, help for your chest,
line, face, and neck, and help for your waist and leg.
Those were records in those days. Right. Amazing.
(03:44):
And one final thing. They're all my favorites, but this is on my gym wall.
One of my most cherished. Get it back here. Oh, that's one of my favorite.
That's one of my favorite pictures. Yeah.
Signed it too to you, right? He signed it with the night, you know, to my friend, Tom.
Workout always. You're great. Your friend. You know, amazing.
(04:08):
Amazing. So I have to share those with you. When we were on,
when we were lecturing and stuff, he would wait. If we didn't have to catch
a plane, he would go to spend hours with people.
And then sometimes I'd have to say, Jack, we got to go. We got to go.
We got to catch a plane. But I said, just write your name and just say, you know. He said, no.
(04:34):
He goes, to my friend. What do you do?
And I said, Jack, we got to go.
Amazing. He's always interested in every person that came up to him. Yes. Yes.
There's so many people. I'm in my mid-50s now. You're amazing, 98 years young.
(04:57):
And we need to continue to teach people about Jack's legacy. So talk about that.
Well, you know what? Speaking of his legacy. The book, right?
I got this. Oh, I got to send you one of these. I just knocked that over.
Anyway, this was Jack's writings. I got a whole bunch of his writings.
(05:20):
Yes. And Greg Justice said to me,
You know, you should write a book about him, about his legacy.
I said, well, I got a bunch of writings.
And so that's what we did. We took his writings.
See, he believed that everything starts between your ears. The mind is a mind.
(05:42):
It's full of diamonds. And all you have to do is dig them up.
And so that's what Jack was all about.
He was about the mind and the body. You know, people say, oh, boy, what a body.
And I say, honey, I didn't fall in love with his body. I fell in love with his brain.
So this is about me when I started in television.
(06:07):
This is about Jack. It's about our family. It's about Arnold and all sorts of
people, Denise Austin and Keith Morrison.
And I mean they all at the end of the
book they all say something about Jack anyway but this
is kind of his legacy but his that's what I
want to do a lot of young people have no idea who's Jack LaLanne what's Jack
(06:33):
LaLanne what is he all about and so sometimes I just say go onto our website
jacklaillane.com and you'll find out about him oh I didn't know he swam I didn't
know he pull those boats.
I didn't know he swam from Alcatraz, handcuffed and shackled and all that stuff.
(06:53):
He has quite a legacy. He invented the first leg extension machine.
He invented the first squat machine. It's called the Smith machine now.
Then he invited the first weight selector, wall pulleys. He's,
you know, and so there's... But he...
(07:15):
He didn't toot his horn that much. You think he tooted his horn.
He just, he, he believes so strongly.
My God, you think you, you, you heard a lot of stuff when you interviewed him.
Well, you should, we had it every night at the dinner table.
I mean, he lived, breathed in that, you know, worked out two hours every day.
(07:41):
Went in this pool one hour in the gym
and oh my gosh i i listened elaine
to a bunch of your prior interviews and
there was one gentleman who asked you about your
routines you know it was about a year or two ago and he said do you work out
with a trainer and your response was i had the greatest trainer for 50 plus
(08:01):
years i thought that was so great that's true i i learned everything from jack I used to say, my gosh,
I learned this through osmosis. Right.
The greatest trainer you could possibly have. Yeah.
And if you hear it every day, every day, 24 hours a day, you learn a lot.
(08:25):
Because, yeah, it's believable. The preface of the book I love,
Jack said in Pride and Discipline, The Legacy of Jack LaWayne that you just held up.
The preface is Jack's words. And he says, people have to take responsibility
for themselves and do something about it. They have to have pride and discipline.
If you have these two elements, you won't fail in life's endeavors.
(08:47):
Amazing. Where'd you find that? That is the preface.
I love it. That is true. That's true. That's exactly what he said.
And you know how many times I heard that too?
But I also love that you said, Elaine, in one of the interviews,
you said it's not what you do some of the time that counts.
(09:08):
It's what you do most of the time that counts. Right. That's right.
That's exactly right. And that's it. I use the term, and again,
this is from learning from your husband and learning from you.
I use the term excessive moderation.
Don't do a lot of exercise a little bit. Do a little bit a lot.
Do you know that the first thing that stuck with me all my life,
(09:31):
that's probably one of the first things he told me, that if you do everything
in moderation, you can't go wrong.
So that's what I do, everything in moderation.
And I saw you, Elaine, again in a video about a year ago, doing jackknives.
You were doing 10 jackknives. I can do 20.
(09:53):
I can prove it.
Are you sure you can? And I'm down on the floor right now because somebody had
to pull me up because I have a bone-on-bone leg.
But, boy, I do them in the bed. I have a...
Table and I could get on and I could do the jackknives but
(10:13):
I do every morning I do I can't touch
my toes but I can I can touch my ankles
you know that's pretty good for 98 years old and I know people are going to
ask you said you do that every morning can you just give us like your daily
I'm sure it changes but your workout routine yeah I you know in the morning
(10:34):
I get up I mean, when I wake up, I go,
you know, when you get older, everything tightens up.
And so I do a lot of this because I find that this is getting tight. So I do a lot of this.
I do a lot of my, I put my, put your hands underneath your, don't,
(10:57):
not hard, just on those bones.
And then just really light, open and close your eyes. Feel those muscles working?
Put them right here. Here, put your fingers right on here. Okay,
now open. Can you feel those muscles?
Sure. 55 muscles in your face. You got to think about them too.
So start from here and go on down. And so,
(11:20):
and I do, you know, a lot of this and I get up and I do the knees in the chest
and I do leg, you know, put my leg out to the back and all that stuff.
So and then i i i'm not
as good as i used to be i have to admit you know but
i but i do the best like i i quote jack i do the best i can with the equipment
(11:44):
i have and speaking of that elaine i love the videos of your home gym it's it's
the basics right it's it's it's nothing fancy i'm I'm sure you've had it for decades,
but it's what it was. Oh, honey, it's so old. You didn't see, right?
I have the original spot machine. It's all put together and welded.
(12:08):
And then I had the leg extension, which is the same thing, welded.
And I still have it. Get in there. I do, you know, I can put my,
you know, do the leg extensions.
And so I just keep moving. I'm not giving up.
Anybody that's listening to this today, I think that if you are starting to
(12:33):
give up and you think you're getting old, you're never too old, ever.
I'm still learning and I'm still trying new stuff.
I'm still learning stuff about my body. I discovered, Oh, if I do this,
this will happen, you know, so it's amazing.
So just keep going and don't ever, ever give up.
(12:57):
You're never told to start, right? And the research says that, Elaine.
Actually, when you start later in life, you get the results really quickly because
your body's not used to it. And that's a great thing.
There's no doubt. And, you know, the trouble is the first time I ever did the
leg lunges, you know, I was I let myself go for a while.
(13:19):
And then since I swam in the Minneapolis Aquafallies in the 40s and then I didn't do anything.
And then until I met Jack and had this class and he had me doing I had me doing these these leg lunges.
I said, oh, this is easy. I'm going. Oh, my gosh. gosh, I couldn't walk.
Oh my gosh, I was so sore the next day. So you don't overdo,
(13:43):
like Jack used to say, you don't eat 100 apples a day, do you?
Right, right, right. I always say, you know, extremes are actually easier.
It's the consistency of the basics, right? That really, really works over time.
Right. You know, I have a, speaking of consistency, I have an arch that I live by.
(14:05):
Attitude. Always have a good attitude. You are your attitude.
So if you're negative, well, we all know it.
You want a positive person to talk to. And then that is an art.
Okay. Let me start with the art.
(14:26):
And then the art is for resistance. Resisting the food that's undermining your body, you know.
Know, but resistance also builds muscle,
so if I just touch this, like this muscle's not working, now I still have a
little muscle left here,
you know, and so if I close and come up very slow, you'll see this muscle working, so now that's AR,
(14:57):
okay, C is for consistency, being consistent in everything that you do.
In other words, being consistent in eating and not overdoing,
being consistent in exercise, having a routine.
So that's my arc. And my son said, why don't you add H on it and exercise?
(15:21):
H would be for harmony. So that gives you harmony if you go through all those things.
And I loved your mission with Jack. One great line I have, you know,
ingrained in my head, Elaine, is that Jack said, I want to help people help
themselves. Oh, I love that line.
(15:41):
That's true. We have a podcast. We ought to have you on sometime. time.
Greg Justice and I, we have a podcast and it's called Pass It On.
Because people would say, Jack, I really appreciate what you've done for me.
And he says, just pass it on.
So we have a Pass It On podcast.
(16:01):
Instantly, I want to know what you want, yours, disrupted. What do you mean by disrupted?
Just going against the conventional, the shortcuts, the fads,
all that kind of stuff You know, it's the truth.
And when we talk about consistency and moderation, that doesn't necessarily
(16:21):
sell books, Elaine, right?
They don't want to hear about moderation, but that's what works.
Yeah, that's another thing I've learned.
Right but before i have to
say one more time because the young kids and the don't
understand you touched on it but jack literally
invented just about everything you touched on a couple the leg extension resistance
(16:44):
bands right resistance the glamour stretcher we had we had this glamour stretcher
and and we sold tons of glamour stretchers in the in the 60s the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
And he has a great, I don't think you can see it, but I have a picture of the
(17:06):
wall up there. And we had it on record.
It's way back. See that round record up there?
Yeah, that's the whole thing on Glamour Structure. Instant Breakfast, that was Jack's idea.
So that's where I was going to go to as well. Like protein bars,
Jack was doing it first. On the protein bars, yeah.
(17:27):
Oh, my gosh. And one thing I tell my kids is, you know, again,
we're talking the 50s, how people believed that exercise, especially for sports,
would be a bad thing, would be a negative.
And Jack was saying, no, this isn't going to help your performance.
But he used to have to give people keys to his gym, I read.
And then he used to have to sneak in because coaches didn't want people doing
(17:50):
it. Right. I had a friend who was a golfer. And she was a...
I guess I forget what title she had, but her coach would not let her work out with weights.
And that's Jackie Jensen, who was a baseball player, and he won a lot of titles.
(18:14):
And he had to come into Jack's, this was years ago, had to come into Jack's
gym with a key early in the morning to work out so his coaches would never hear about him working out.
But now, look, everything has turned around.
And we're talking decades for people to truly believe what Jack knew,
(18:37):
you know, back in the 50s and earlier.
When I was starting to work out, they said, well, women would get muscles like men, you know.
And so I got muscle tone, but, you know, it really toned up my body.
And really, I didn't look like a band, you know.
(19:00):
So I was a tomboy when I was young, you know.
My neighbor used to say, when is Elaine going to become a lady?
You know, at 13, I was still climbing trees.
Probably to this day. Let's talk about the big event that's coming up in July.
(19:23):
Yeah. Yes. Well, you know, Jack, for 34 years on television,
every morning, guess what?
And a silhouette would come up and they can see it on Jackalane.com.
You can just go in there and you're going to see him just jumping in his silhouette.
He would do the jumping jacks. This is the Jackalane show.
(19:47):
And then, you know, then he'd come on and, hi, boys and girls,
go get your mommy and go get your daddy. and bring him to the television and
happy he'll do a trick for you. Okay, something like that, you know.
And so we heard...
Now, every year I do this for IdeaFit convention.
(20:11):
Since Jack died, they gave an award to him for someone who's inspired the world to fitness.
So every year since then, I have been giving away this Jacqueline award.
Well, this year, not only I'm going to give away the award to Galad Jackowitz,
the Bodies in Motion, but we're going
(20:34):
to have a jumping jack contest and
you know what it's good we're going to beat the poland
record of 2251 jumping jacks
done simultaneously and we're going to do it at the idea fit convention july
12th at one o'clock down in los angeles at the now if you can't come down there.
(21:01):
We want you to come down, but you have to.
How are we going to know if you don't sign up, how are we going to know that
you're going to do the jumping jacks?
So we have to have you sign up.
So now we want you to sign up if you're going to come down to the Convention
Center on July 12th at 1 o'clock at the West Hall of the Convention Center.
(21:24):
And then we're going to do Oh, I've got Arnold, let's see.
Mark Wahlberg, he's in Australia doing a movie, and he's going to give us a little pep talk.
And we've got the Marines flag,
you know, the color guard, and then we've got a whole bunch of people.
(21:47):
Denise Austin, you know the personality she has.
She's going to be down there getting everybody jumping. And we're going to have
Tony Horton and Billy Blanks and Kathy Smith and Lisey Green and,
oh, my God, Todd Durkin, Dan Isaacson. Oh, my goodness.
And, of course, a lot will be there and a whole bunch more.
(22:10):
And you're going to shatter it, Elaine, right? So it's like 5,000 people you're hoping for.
Well, I hope so. But if they don't sign up, how in the heck are we going to know?
We've got to have you sign up for it at ideafit.com. You can sign up at jacqueline.com too.
(22:30):
And then we really would love to have you jump with us.
There's going to be a whole lot of jumping going on.
And maybe you will and if you're you know i don't
care if it's your seattle or you're in alaska or
you can still get your group together or you
could do it and just but sign in that you're
(22:52):
going to be jumping you know so i'm going to put all those links away in the
description of this podcast so people will be able to click right on it i'm
going to be joining you virtually i can't be out there this year so i will be
jumping with you and i will and i will get as many people as I can,
but I will share those links.
So again, people, you can be part of this world record. And then you can always
(23:16):
say, I was part of that, you know?
Exactly. I have a Guinness record for jumping with Elaine Lillane and all of
the incredible people you just outlined.
What a great way to honor the memory of Jack and spread the word,
as you said, to keep paying it forward.
Yes, I appreciate it. It's so much.
(23:36):
I'm so excited to be on your show again.
Well, Jack was on your show, but we talked on the phone a lot.
We did. And you spoke with my wife. She was so tickled when I said,
can you believe after all these years, we're coming around again and I can speak
with Elaine. I think we spoke with you at the very end.
(23:57):
Amazing. So amazing. So thank you. I know you are so busy.
So again, I'm going to share all that information away. And along with the book,
too, everyone needs to get the book.
Yeah and then i've before
that i've been writing books for the last six seven
years i'm i've got one that's it's
called if you wanna live moo putting the boom back into boomers i wrote with
(24:21):
jamie brinkus he's the one that does the eight minute eight minute workout you
know and that is a great day get you on your way all right one more thing and
then i have one final You know, but Jack,
I asked him way back, I'll never forget.
I said, what's one of his, what's one of your go-to foods?
And he said, hard-boiled eggs. Love the hard-boiled eggs. What's one of your?
(24:43):
He was, he'd have these hard-boiled eggs and, but he'd not, he'd eat,
no, he wouldn't eat the centers. He'd only eat the whites.
And then, and so he never, he didn't not, he didn't tell me I can't have them,
but he just ate the whites.
He said, they've only got, I forget how many calories in the whites,
(25:05):
and a lot of less calories in the whites.
Is that one of your built-in foods, Elaine? Do you still eat those?
Is that something you enjoy?
Yeah, I'm not one who has them every day, but I enjoy hard-boiled eggs. Okay.
A lot of times, you know, and I'm in a hurry, and I went, oh, my gosh.
(25:28):
So I always keep hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator, and then I can go in
for lunch or something and have a little maybe glass of milk.
I have the lactate milk and
a hard-boiled egg and maybe a
– i don't eat much bread but i
do eat bread i i pretty much
(25:50):
eat everything and meat i don't eat a lot
of meat but and it's just everything
everything in my moderation i was waiting for you to say it elaine all right
it's been such a pleasure i want to do this again again everybody july 12th
i will put all the information in the podcast description you'll be able to
(26:11):
click right write on the link, sign up.
I want to leave. So, Elaine, on many of my podcasts, I end the show with words of your husband.
So this is one of the clips I play at the end of just about every podcast. Here we go.
I hope that each and every one of you wonderful people who are listening to
Tom, the great show, will do something for the most important person on the earth, you.
(26:37):
Makes me so happy to have that. and to have him mention me by name.
Thank you, Sharon.
So thank you again. I have two favorite interviews and I've done many and it's
you and it's your husband.
Thank you for all that you do. I look forward to joining you on July 12th and
(27:00):
everyone, you have to join us as well. Thank you, Elaine. Have a great day.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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