Jack Lalanne die 96, founding father of the movement fitness United States - Los Angeles Times

Jack Lalanne, the seemingly eternal champion of health and fitness, the first popular idea that Americans should eat, work and stay right on the vitality and youth, died Sunday. He was 96th

LaLanne died of lung failure from pneumonia at his home in Morro Bay, Calif., his agent Rick Hersh said. He had heart valve surgery performed in December 2009.

Although several years LaLanne as a mere "man of muscle" has been dismissed - has fueled a run to a certain extent by his feats of strength - he was the spiritual father of the movement of health in a national enthusiasm fitness rooms , exercise and prospered fantasy sports clubs.

LaLanne opened what is commonly accepted that the club of the nation's health first, be in Oakland in 1936. In the 1950s he started a television in the early morning coding exercise program, moms at home. He designed many exercise machines now familiar, including leg extension machine and the weight of the cable pulley. And he proposed the radical idea then that women, elderly and disabled should work to retain power.

Full of zest and good humor, regarded as a leader LaLanne combination, aid workers and rescuers. And if the enthusiasm of a religious fervor, it was good, so be it.

"Well, there. It is a religion with me," he said, What is Enlightenment, Awareness magazine, in 1999. "This is a lifestyle. A religion is a way of life, is not it? "

"Billy Graham was beyond. I am interested in the here and now," he told the Times when he was 92 employs close to his usual spiel rapid-fire.

Another time, he said, "The crusade is never out of my head - the exercise I do, I eat, I think - all this and how can I help my respected profession better for me this thing -. physical culture and food - is the salvation of America. "

When he started, he knew that most people considered him a charlatan. Then he falls it is not known.

"I must have believed the man to me," he said.

He played his first work of art in 1954 when he was 40 and wanted to prove he was not "on the mound." He swam the length of the Golden Gate Bridge - under water. (He carrying two oxygen cylinders.)

Other talents in her 40s: swimming from Alcatraz to San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf handcuffed, swimming the Golden Gate channel while towing a cabin-cruiser of 2500 pounds, a 30-mile stretches paddleboard Farallon Islands, the coast of San Francisco.

At age 60, he increased the ante swimming from Alcatraz to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, handcuffed and towing a boat books 1000.

The following year, he has a similar feat -. And at age 70, he towed 70 boats with 70 people in the Queen's Way Bridge in Long Beach Harbor on the Queen Mary while he was handcuffed.

Why try such acts?

"I care more - do not believe how much I care about anyone! Do you help I can do, "LaLanne said. "Jesus, as he ground, he was there to help people, right? Why did he perform a miracle? To attract attention to his profession. Why do you care about my work, I have incredible feats? To "call

(- Most of the authors quoted him exclamation point is stressed in many speeches recreate LaLanne was essential.)

Now in his late 80s, Lalanne began her fitness routine of two hours a day - a weight training and one hour of aerobics in the pool - starting at 5 or 5:30 in the morning (a concession to his age, which in a few days earlier, he began by 4 o'clock in the morning).

Nobody - not even Arnold Schwarzenegger - could be argued that this was not the best Lalanne. Schwarzenegger, who LaLanne in the 1960s, met at the Muscle Beach Venice Boardwalk, "said LaLanne would try to see that may correspond to the number of push-ups and push-ups.