Fitness pioneer Jeff Galloway and the need for our older bodies to chill out and enjoy the ride.
I was almost finished with exercise before I even had started.
In 2015, I had suffered serious trauma in the form of a sudden heart attack. I had gone to the gym semi-regularly to work out on the elliptical or bike and converse with my friends there. I thought I was eating well — not a preponderance of sugary foods but too much snacking — and I considered that since I was in OK shape, nothing could stop me from living a healthy life.
Then, reality hit me with a two-by-four. I had my heart attack one Saturday night. I was rushed to the ER and found myself getting a stent installed at 2 a.m. that evening. My heart survived intact, but my ego and my sense of self-worth took longer to recover. I questioned why my three-day-a-week exercise program and semi-balanced eating habits did not insulate me from this monster in my attic.
I got out of my funk and started running, very slowly at first on a treadmill while heeding warnings from my cardiologist not to overdo it. Then, I did overdo it, joining a running club for the camaraderie and sense of shared purpose. I ran many races since then. I lost considerable weight, looking like a scarecrow bleeding straw, so I backed off some but kept up my routine. I took up strength and conditioning training to provide some muscle to my cardio.
But at first, reaching the starting line was difficult, as much mentally as physically. I was a victim of a bad health break and underconfident in my abilities. I was never athletic. I told myself all sorts of negative words, why I could not do this. I sought help from others.
Then I found out about Jeff Galloway, an Olympic runner in 1972 who ran with the greats, including Frank Shorter and Steve Prefontaine. But more importantly, as he reached his 50s, Galloway found a new calling as a life and fitness coach. He was different from the many others in a cluttered field, all by advocating a simple idea: Chill out and enjoy your time exercising. Don’t stress the small stuff. Enjoy your life and consider exercise as part of an exciting journey and not as a must-do destination that is punishing and physically demoralizing.
I bought his signature book, “Galloway’s Book on Running,” and looked into how this advice would play with an older adult like me who was nearing age 60 and had never run before or exercised seriously. While his book advances his running techniques, it contains a large section on motivation and getting after it. His mantra: “A body on the couch wants to stay there. But once a body is in motion … it wants to continue in motion.”
In other words, he writes, everyone has low-motivation days where we don’t think we progress or feel like failures. But forward motion, even in the most sluggish of times, sustains us and boosts our attitude and sense of self-worth. He even writes that, for older exercisers, to just relax and enjoy the ride, like someone riding an Amtrak train. On his website, concerning those advancing in age, he writes that
The key to running until you’re 100 or so is to maintain good health and nutrition, stay within your capabilities and exercise regularly enough to maintain the adaptations you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Age appropriate training allows you to enjoy running more while reducing aches and pains.
While we all may not move until age 100 or so, there are nuggets of wisdom from Galloway, who died in February at age 80 and left a lasting impression on exercisers globally, as much in his mental approach as in his running techniques. He says that positive motivation allows a person to use past success for future performance, that your left and right brains can coalesce as a team: The left-side brain anticipates problems and the negative energy that details you. The right-side brain searches for resources and solutions.
Galloway pioneered the run-walk method of exercise. It applies not only to runners but to anyone at any age who would like to exercise more but does not want to cope with the physical stress involved. Simply put, his concept is that all runners need to take frequent walking breaks to reset our energy and our minds. We don’t need to go full-out at a sprint or always exercise arduously or at max speed to achieve personal results. Take the time to breathe and listen to your body.
This idea sounds more commonplace today. But when it was first introduced, marathon running was gaining heavy traction. Coaches at gyms were telling clients to push themselves hard, to work at a peak level, to get that heart rate sky-high and sweat like a dripping dish rag.
This was different. Walking was advocated by Galloway as a means to the same fitness end. Stopping to catch one’s breath become more important than huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf. And, more importantly for older exercisers, they should not have to work out like a young adult aiming for bulk muscle or too-lofty personal bests.
He tells older athletes – and that term can apply to anyone who does something physical – that “it is obvious to me that while we need to be more conservative as the years go by, we benefit from, and are penalized by, the same principles of training that apply to 20 year olds.” Radical insight there.
So just do it and don’t worry about how you compare to someone else, whether younger or more fit, or feel guilty when you miss a few days or don’t strive for perfection. Even Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players of all time and a scoring machine in his prime, knew that perfection should not be the ultimate goal.
Jordan once said that “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
For me, Galloway’s book meant that, even as a 60-something still diligently exercising, I can give myself permission to fail. I can have good and bad days. I can question myself. I can feel like I cannot put one foot in front of another or that my legs are made of lead or that my hips and knees are my enemies. I can be unmotivated or think too much about other parts of my life and put exercise in the rear view. But I keep moving.
And while doing so, I feel much better in the process.
There is science behind this approach, to work hard in short intervals and take breaks. When we move at high intensity for a long period, our body’s supply of stored amino acids from protein and of glucose from carbohydrates becomes depleted. We draw instead on our fat resources and take away from the building of muscle mass and strength. We finally hit a wall and are basically done.
But by giving yourself permission to slow down, you allow your body to recover too, for it to regenerate the energy you need. And this is especially critical for older adults, who can ill afford to lose more muscle that we need for mobility and strength. Exercise can be an elixir to good health if done in a reasonable way for our bodies.
Each of us is different in the amount of effort to put into this. Frankly, I am still learning to slow down and not worry about skipping exercise. But I always feel better about myself when I move. I just open Galloway’s book and see the 60-something runner on the cover waving and contentedly holding hands with his wide while slowly jogging.
Don’t make this too difficult; exercise should be enjoyed or you won’t do it for long. As Galloway writes about running (and this can apply to any form of exercise), “running is more than just putting one foot in front of the other. It’s a journey of self-discovery, health improvement and personal achievement.” Just learn to breathe.
Joe Pryweller is a longtime fitness advocate who has finished close to 20 half marathons, a full marathon and a Hyrox competition in his 60s and has worked with others in their fitness journeys. He survived a heart attack in 2015 and has used that experience to motivate himself and others to reach fitness goals. Joe is working toward a Certified Personal Trainer license through the National Academy of Sports Medicine and will be accepting clients in summer 2026. He also is a professional journalist who writes articles on fitness-related topics.