At age 81, Dr. Kenneth Cooper has switched from running to brisk walking.
Do whatever you can, and do it with gusto, he advises. “Just avoid inactivity. You don’t have to run a marathon. Just get off your rear.”
Cooper, the founder and chairman of the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas, talked recently to Steve Blow, a columnist at the Dallas Morning News. (See the April 22, 2012, issue.) He published his bestseller Aerobics in 1968, introducing a new word and a new concept and helping to start a worldwide fitness revolution.
Cooper’s advice is simple. “Get 30 minutes of walking in on most days,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be at once. Just a total of 30 minutes. That’s it. You will add years to your life.”