TR any info you can share about Dr. Schwartz and his training and diet? I really liked his approach and books. I am especially interested if he suffered any upper body joint issues with the countless reps he did. He was incredible shape. If I remember he died of cancer which was very sad to hear. I am from PA originally and he was a well known personality in Pittsburgh.
Hey Stormy,
Only limited "diet" information on the late great Dr. Schwartz. He didn't go into a lot of detail in his books as you probably recall, but, I tried to ask him a few times on any specifics and he never really had any. We did speak a few times about meeting for lunch at one of his favorite sandwich shops in the area where he lived in Pittsburgh as I was traveling to Warrendale for several months, but, that was during the period when he was in Florida. So, it never worked out.
He admitted he never really read the diet books and wasn't familiar with several that I'd mentioned. The only one he recognized was Atkins, which he said sounded pretty silly. His only dietary comments/suggestions were eat healthy foods like oatmeal, whole grain bread, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, lean meats, avoid fried and sugary foods, limit your alcohol. And if you had weight to lose, check your caloric intake. I believe he only ate three times/day -- almost a No S Diet kind of approach. Nothing more complicated than that.
Training? HHs, of course, were his go to following his hamstring injury which curtailed his jogging. 30 - 45 min, constantly varying intensities, paces, movements. But, he ventured into various new approaches such as Pan-X which, if you can find his patent on line, was pretty much a chinning/pushup tower we see in sporting goods stores. He used that device to vary his workouts, doing pushups and chins along with (assisted) squats super-set style, and, in his latter years he also advocated Isotonometrics -- especially for sedentary seniors -- to encourage physical activity. I don't know how much of it he actually did, to be honest. He also experimented with other options using other tools, etc. He said he had notebooks full of ideas and the U of Pittsburgh also had information from things they'd worked on jointly.
I asked about his HH walks outdoors? He loved doing that, especially in the fall in Pittsburgh in the area where he lived. He said it was absolutely amazing when the fall colors arrived and said "you'd love it here".
He loved dance and wanted people to understand it was part of the HH's "flow".
He preferred whole body training -- swimming over running, running over cycling, but, he said he did like to ride his bike periodically. He didn't get the whole fascination for powerlifting and bodybuilding, didn't consider it functional, but, thought KBs were an interesting concept. (He said he talked with Pavel once in a while and enjoyed sharing ideas with him.) He loved baseball, as I recall, and enjoyed throwing the ball with his grandkids.
You may recall the story where there was an experiment where Dr. Schwartz and a bodybuilder were challenged with doing a certain amount of "work" in a certain amount of time? Think it was moving bricks or cinder blocks -- can't recall. Dr. Schwartz outworked the bb'er who was several decades younger than him.
I asked him about injury claims? eg "The Psychic" on that other board had once claimed there was a gym in Minneapolis that taught HHs and there were horrid injury rates? He said he was actually familiar with the gym as Gin Miller* had helped with the program and said he said he never heard a single thing in that regard. He did hear about injuries regularly, but, it was from people who tried to do too much too soon, or, simply too much. For example, there were guys that would jump into HHs with 20 or 25lb dumbells and go for a run or long walk and end up with elbow issues, etc. He felt between using too much weight and immediately plus the need to grip the weights (which the handles were designed to alleviate), these people were setting themselves up for injury and should have used common sense.
He was also an avid follower of classical music, espcially classical guitar. We regularly exchanged names of artists, etc., that we enjoyed. This was where he was very emphatic on our calls:
- Schwartz said if you play piano, guitar or some kind of musical instrument, learn to play it as well as you can and keep it up. He said there will come a point when you can't play anymore and that is truly a loss.
- Find your passion in complete music. He felt music like classical was the most complete...complex, caused you think, to learn. But also find music you could enjoy for relaxation and fun.
Few know Dr. Schwartz served in World War 2 in the Pacific.
Also spoke with his daughter four or five times. One time I asked her about a story I'd read in one of the books or on line where Dr. Schwartz was on the beach in Florida walking along in a tank top and some teenage kids had asked him what he did for his arms? She laughed and said yes, that story is true...she and one of the kids were with him on the occasion. The last times were when I hadn't been able to reach him and he hadn't responded to a couple of emails and she'd shared he'd been sick and wasn't able to respond to anyone for a few weeks and then when he passed away.
Other:
- Gin Miller -- woman who developed the Reebok Step program. He was friends with her, liked most of her stuff but said too much lower body pounding/work in his opinion.
- One of the people who'd worked with Dr. Schwartz on the original HHs projects, Judy Shasek, went off on her own and released a video that was 1:1 out of the ab section of Schwartz' 3rd book. She produced it with Gin Miller.
- He had a grandson, Jeremy, who Dr. Schwartz hoped (from my understanding) would take up the mantle of HHs. Jeremy was fluent in foreign languages and loved to travel and Schwartz said he was in excellent physical condition, following a program of HHs and a little running, etc. He'd sent me the URL to Jeremy's site years ago...can't find it...but it was full of a lot of good information.
Hope that isn't overkill, but, I think that recaps most of our discussions.
