70 Is the New 40 | Sports (original) (raw)
The first out gay man to win the Mr. America title, in 1973, Jim Morris is going stronger than ever, working as a personal trainer at Legacy Gym in West L.A. and posing, magnificently, for our photo portfolio "The Naked Truth" -- at age 73! Truly raising the bar on the concept of aging gracefully, Jim talks frankly about gays and self-perception, his vegan diet, steroids, and his wild night with Elton John, John Lennon, and Divine.
Congratulations on maintaining your Mr. America physique into your 70s -- it’s truly inspirational and proof that bodybuilding is a pathway to living long and living well. How have you managed to stay motivated all this time?
Staying motivated is not a problem because once I realized I could be as healthy as I was willing to work for, I could never do otherwise. All the functions of day-to-day living are the same functions that determine the aging process, all of which are under our control. Aging and living are one and the same process; therefore all of the processes of living, which we control, are controlling how we age. So staying motivated for my lifestyle not only is not hard, I cannot do otherwise.
Bodybuilding serves me on many levels. One is as a refuge from life’s problems. I tend to beat myself up over things, and the focus and dedication of training for some goal always pulls me through the resulting depression. It also allows me to express my creativity from which I get the most pleasure of anything. I have never been good at training as maintenance. So I can relate to my clients in that respect. There are long periods of no training, but something always comes along to get me fired up again. What allows me to sustain a degree of fitness during these lax periods is my lifestyle, which is relatively stress-free, and the vegan diet, which includes no processed or refined foods.? ?
From left: Jim Fraracci, Zabo Koszewski, Chet Yorton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joe Gold. "There was a lot of good-natured, although very gay, fooling around at the original Gold's," Morris says of this shot he took in 1969. "Here Arnold plants a kiss on the forehead of Chet as Zabo cops a feel. Note that Chet is holding Arnold around the waist."
This creation last year was the result of my not knowing of anyone in their 70s who I felt could match what I knew I was capable of. Being the first to achieve a heretofore unseen level of development was an attraction and challenge I could not resist. Setting a standard also appealed to me. When people say I look so good for my age, my response is, “I don’t think so. I think this is what the 70s should look like.”
I think competing and status are part of being human, and as a child I was not coordinated and never participated in sports, and I find through bodybuilding I am able to satisfy my need to compete and establish my status with other males on my terms.
Bodybuilding satisfies my need to compete for sex and my need to be admired.
How do you deal with the chronic injuries that seem to plague so many bodybuilders?
The body has a remarkable ability to heal itself if given the right materials (nutrients) and care (treatment). My joints have from time to time flared up from overuse, but I have learned to allow them time between exertions to heal. Now I do not have any pain or even discomfort in any of my joints or muscles, which is one of the major reasons I am able to train hard enough to attain my current condition. I attribute it mostly to my eating habits. When I dropped processed and refined foods, all of what remained of my physical and health problems went away completely. Most had already disappeared when I became vegan.
Tell me a little about your exercise regimen now -- it must differ drastically from when you were competing. Or does it?
There are three main differences. I use a fraction of the poundage I used to use, but that is as much because my goal is different now as anything else. Heavy poundage is necessary to increase muscle size, which is no longer my goal and has not been in decades. Once I reached the maximum muscle mass for my frame, I backed off on the poundage. After that it has been a matter of refining and detailing.
I have developed a routine of “flexing,” which I do at home and devote as much time to as the actual gym workout. It is basically the old Charles Atlas “Dynamic Tension” method with a twist, which more than makes up for the lower poundages I use in the gym. I can get as intense a pump and break a sweat with this workout.
Third, I am no longer rigid about my workouts; namely, I no longer absolutely must do certain exercises on certain days with a definite number of sets and reps. I have learned to listen to my body and I do whatever I “feel” like at the moment. It can range from not working out at all to going in twice a day depending on my mood. It is very loose now.
In all fairness, do you think you could have won the Mr. America title had you been a vegan back in the ’70s? I thought building muscle required protein -- and lots of it.
Not only would I have won, I think I would have been spectacular. I won the Mr. America with the largest winning point margin in the history of the contest (30 points, and the record still stands), and I know the margin would have been even larger had I been a vegan. What I have always had going for me is symmetry. It would have emphasized those lines even more by eliminating the “bloat” that comes from eating animal products, especially dairy. Vegetable protein is infinitely better quality protein for humans and is available in more than sufficient quantities in vegetables.
At his heaviest weight ever: 233 pounds
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John Jameson is managing editor for The Advocate.