Grow Healthier as you Grow Older 2025 300 pgs, by Dr. Kenneth Cooper He is a well known fitness expert and has a medical clinic and president of Cooper Aerobics. Chap. 1 Good aerobic exercise is the driver of better health. The ave. Life expectancy in the US in 2023 was 76 yrs. Still many countries have longer. Medical studies have confirmed his program recommendations. They are control your weight, do aerobic exercise 30 minutes a day, make healthy food choices, take vitamin supplements, manage stress and get good sleep, don’t smoke or drink alcohol, and get a regular medical exam. This will keep you healthy and slow down the aging process. A study of 28,000 patients confirmed better health and less disease by staying fit. Also a study of 116,000 Cooper clinic patients confirmed this, with most living 10 yrs longer that the 77 yrs. He calls it getting Cooperized with doing 8 steps: Step 1. Maintain a healthy weight: Meet your BMI Body Mass Index of 18.5-25.0 Metric formula BMI= weight(KG)/ height (M)2 or US BMI= 703 weight(lbs)/ height (inches)2 or use and on line calc. BMI Calculator: Measure Body Mass Index and Fat Also use the Body Roundness Index, BRI is a measure of visceral fat or pot belly. This fat is associated with cardiovascular disease and cancer. BRI Calculator | Calculate Your Body Roundness Index Free The good BRI for men is 4.0 and for women 5.0 A simple version is just to measure your waist at the navel and it should be less than 40 inches for men and women, less than 35 inches. Step 2 Healthy food. Use the 80:20 rule 80% of the time eat healthy and 20% you can splurge. Fruits and vegies are good and 5 servings is good each day. This lowers your blood pressure and cholesterol. You should drink a liter of water each day. Fish and chicken is good, He likes oatmeal with berries and low fat milk for breakfast, and an egg. Nuts are good. Step 3 vitamins and supplements. A multi-vitamin, and 2000 IU units of vitamin D3. there is a lot of data showing D3 prevents dementia and some studies show it lessens covid-19. Also omega-3 oil is good. He had a knee injury and takes glucosamine and chondroitin for that. Step 4 Exercise One needs to get your heart rate up for 30 min. Walking, running, swimming, tennis, or an aerobics machine with a heart rate monitor. Also10 min. of circuit weight training using light weights and many reps. Steps 5,6 no smoking and very little alcohol. Step 7 Manage your Stress and get a good sleep. Chronic stress can raise blood pressure, lower the immune system, even cause depression. Occasionally do progressive relaxation of all muscles while laying back and also do slow deep breathing. Step 8 Get a regular good full physical exam. At his clinic they do the following: Chap. 2,3,4 His History. He liked running for exercise in High school and college in Oklahoma. He enjoyed hiking and camping in the wild and was very fit. He was a christian. He was in the Army and Air force as a Dr. There he was on some extreme, expeditions; freezing conditions in Alaska and jungle water survival training in Florida. He liked fitness. As he was finishing med. school and residencies he got out of shape with weight going up from 164-204 lbs, and had a fat belly and some pre-diabetic symptoms. He tried some water skiing and noted great tiredness and weakness, which shocked him, so he vowed to get in shape again. So he did slowly get back in shape and taught aviation physiology in the Air force. His fat belly and pre-diabetic symptoms were gone. Then he enrolled in the Harvard school of Public Health. He biked 20 miles/day there and back. He there met a Dr. who introduced him to J. Kelly who has run 60 Boston-26 mile marathons; with his last at age 84.( he lived until age 97) They encouraged Cooper to run and train for the next one. He did run it, but was exhausted and got blisters on his feet.(taking 3 hr 54 min.) Kelly ran it in 2 hr, 24 min. At Harvard, after his MPH, he was pursuing a Dr. in Exercise physiology; and a thesis on hypoxic conditions at high altitude benefiting running at sea level. At Harvard they had a hypoxic chamber he trained in. This stimulated his red blood cells and increased his hemoglobin. Thus, his next Boston marathon BM was in 3:24, 30 min less than before. He advised another famous runner, A. Bikila to use the chamber he didn’t. He was used to 7000 ft at his home and lost his acclimation, because of this, he had to walk the last mile of the BM. Bikila didn’t make that mistake again in the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, where he won it. Chap 5 the Research. I found the oxygen was the key to how exercise benefits health. Food can be stored in the tissues, but oxygen can not. Food is our fuel, but oxygen is needed to turn it into energy. When one exercises one needs more breathing and oxygen. When one is unconditioned, with exercise you can’t supply enough oxygen so you get an oxygen debt and get very tired. He studied this a lot at Harvard and at the Air Force Aerospace Lab. With his aerobic training, lung capacity increases and their oxygen exchange,the heart get stronger and is able to pump more blood, muscle tone improves and excess fat is burned away and there are improvements in mood, sleep, less stress and better self image. The tread mill was new and not everyone had access. Still he needed a reliable test all could do. If your exercise is too brief you don’t get all the benefits and if its too vigorous and long you build up exhaustion and oxygen debt. The 12 minute Cooper test and exercise..You need up to a 1.5 mile run in 12 min. He did this in a study of 12,000 Air Force members. Different exercise types will also achieve this including: cycling, swimming, walking to achieve 30 exercise points per week. Charts noting this are available from USAF pamphlet 50-30 and in the book; Aerobics program for total well being, 1982, which became a PE text for much of the world. Or see cooper aerobics. He was also a consultant to NASA to develop astronaut exercise programs. Chap. 6 the Book His first book was titled- Aerobics and at that time,1968, it was a new word. An article got published in the Readers Digest that drew a lot of attention. He also did a TV interview with Barbara Walters in NYC. He got attention from Claudio Coutinho who was the coach for the Brazil soccer team, in 1968 as they prepared for the1970 World cup. The coach stayed with Cooper,C for 6 months. C told him if they did the Cooper training, their fitness for the 1970 soccer game would improve especially in the 2nd half. Then C worked with the team for a yr. to have them get 100 points/wk. The team including, Pele got 6 wins in a row to reach the finals against Italy, who was thought to be unstoppable. The teams were tied at 1-1 at the half, but Brazil pulled ahead 4-1 in the 2nd
half. Brazil was considered awesome and that made C an icon overnight. Sales of the Aerobics book skyrocketed and the 1.5 miles in 12 min, getting you 32 points with 4/wk became very popular. Soccer is a global sport, and 1.5 billion watch the World Cup compared to 150 million for the US football Super Bowl. C then traveled to 82 countries giving talks, the books are translated into 15 languages. In 1974, C was invited by the Billy Graham Assn. To share a testimony at their crusade on 10/6 at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janero, Brazil. He did give a brief testimony citing 1 Tim. 4:8 and 1 Corin. 6:20 “for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body”and Isa. 40:31. At the crusade there were 225,000. Over the yrs. he has found that pastors and Drs. are 2 of the most out-of-shape groups and heart disease, hypertension,and stroke are prevalent among them. He did do a workshop and attended a run in Brazil for the Brazilian Baptist Assn. In 1981 and 10,000 participated. Chap 7. The Legacy He updated the approach a little in the 1970 book: The New Aerobics here he reminded the middle aged to get a physical exam before starting and slowly workup to the 30 points a week. Next came The Aerobics Way in 1977, and then the Aerobics Program for Total Well Being in 1982; this was the most comprehensive and was used widely as a text for Physical Educ. He did a Journal article in the JAMA in 1981 titled: ‘Physical Fitness and all cause Mortality’. This involved treadmill tests on 13,600 subjects and placing them in 6 different fitness categories: very poor, poor, fair, good, excellent, and superior. They then followed them for 8.6 yrs. There was a high correlation with higher fitness and decrease in diseases. Those who went from very poor to poor had a 6 yr increase in longevity and a 58% decrease in deaths from all causes. However, ascending the remaining categories to superior, only gave a 3 yrs increase in longevity and a 65% decrease in death from all causes. So the biggest benefits come form increasing from the very poor category to a little higher and that is easy to do. So over the yrs. of his career his advice changed from top fitness goals to recommendations for the average person, that went from running 15 miles/ wk , to 30 min of aerobic exercise/ day. He also added the diet, no smoking and little drinking alcohol, and a medical exam. In 1977 his wife helped him write Aerobics for Women. The rise of Aerobics dance helped women to be fit. The mother of aerobics dance is Jacki Sorenson. Cooper coordinated with her some and by 1980 she had dance studio franchises in 1,500 locations. After that Jane Fonda exercise videos became popular and it was called Jane Fonda’s Workout in 1982. Cooper also cooperated with her. Aerobics became popular in Tokyo Japan and Cooper helped with that and a new Cooper clinic in Chiba City Japan in 2000. A Cooper center also opened in China in 2017 and another near Beijing in 2019. He gave several talks in China and was also allowed to share his christian testimony. Chap. 8 Dream of opening a center., God led him to start a center in Dallas as he had connections there. So in Dec. 1970 he opened a clinic in a 2 room office with Dr. Joe Arends, a military friend. IN the first yr. We got little business, and I was living on savings and almost was ready to give up; but my wife asked me if this was my divinely inspired purpose, I sad yes ; so then she encouraged me to continue. Then the clients did pick up from my books contacts. I did have sign on the wall- “The home of a future Cooper Aerobics center”. A man from Venezuela came and said he would come back when I had the new center. Then Cooper sought financing for a new center. He found a property of Mrs. Nichols, he liked. After several tries she asked if he was the man who wrote the book on exercise, as she had heard his talk. That was a God sent as she took a lower price for a piece for the property; still it was $1 million. Then he needed a loan., but the bank wouldn’t give it. Then he remembered he had been invited to talk to Saturn industries by the CEO Joe McKinney. With Joe’s influence he got he board of directors to back a 1.6 million loan- another God sent. In Nov. 1971 The Cooper Aerobics Center opened! He also founded and opened the Cooper Institute, the research arm of the center. Chap. 9. Elite Runners. From doing Cooper’s testing he can often determine who will win a race. These runners have much lower resting heart rate 47 compared to an average mans of 72. He concluded these runners are both born and made. Chap 10. Triumphs and trials The Cooper Center database contains 350,000 clinical visits from116,000 clients. We have proven that it’s cheaper and more effective to prevent disease than to find a cure. Our exam has 6 parts: medical exam,lab analysis, cardiovascular screening and tests on the treadmill, CT scan, nutrition counseling, skin cancer screening. We opened the Cooper Hotel in 1984 and expanded it in1995. Notable clients include: Ross Perot, George W. Bush, Rev. Robert Schuller, Bill Bright of Campus Crusade, Don Carter, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Today they have more than 400 members and on a busy day we have 800-1000 people working out. In 1988 a bank closed a lone a on them and they needed a bail out. Don Carter helped with that and cosigned the loan. In 2004 they paid off their mortgage They now have a facility with 30 acres. Here in America we spend 3 trillion on health care yearly, yet we rank 43rd among the nations in longevity data. Chap 11 Cholesterol and Kids Health. He got a visit in 2002 from a good friend and patient Steve Reinemund, CEO of Pepsi. Steve was worried about the trans fats in Frito Lays. C told him they were harmful and raised the bad cholesterol, LDL. At that time the trans fats were in many products, that contribute to heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Steve decided to remove the trans fats, also called hydrogenated oils. In 2003 other countries were regulating them and the US FDA said they were dangerous in 2015. In 2023 The WHO said they should not be used. Pepsi also funded C’s radio show for awhile. C got several offers to be the US surgeon General, from Pres. Bush, but turned them down. In these discussions C pointed out there needed to be a focus on better children’s health, obesity and diabetes. Better fitness would prevent that. Some bills had been put in congress on that, but failed. It was suggested that C work with Gov. Perry of Texas who became a patient at the Cooper Clinic. This resulted in a FitnessGram FG and program for Kids and lead by Dr. C. Sterling the director of the Cooper Institute, and was piloted in the Texas public schools in 1976. The idea was to create a FG for students, parents and schools. It assessed kids for 5 areas: Aerobic capacity, Body composition, Muscular strength, and Endurance and Flexibility to create a fitness “report card”. There were 3 levels noted: Healthy Fitness, Needs Improvement and Health Risk. See pg. 160 for the details. In the early 2000s there were no required PE programs many schools and in Texas. Still studied had shown fitness promotes better mental performance. IN 2007 Gov. Perry and Senator Nelson made the FG mandatory in Texas schools. C started to raise funding for the program and by 2008 he had collected 3.1 million. It involved 9000 schools and training 25 thousand teachers. By the end we evaluated 1.8 million kids in 3-12 grades. The program went well and helped kids be more fit and healthy and was renewed by state funding. Obesity and diabetes are epidemic in kids nationwide. Eventually C got he FG program accepted by the state of GA, and then by many other states. Charlotte and Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys wanted and outreach program for kid’s fitness and asked C’s help. They titled it “NFL Play 60” designed to get kids moving for 60 min /day. For a measurement of progress they used the FG test. This resulted in C’s paper in 2017 in the Amer. Journal of Preventive Medicine. This had data from about 1000 schools and noted fitness improvement. Along with fitness comes less disease and better mental performance. Oral Roberts was a famous evangelist and has a University. He came to the C. Clinic for a respiratory problem. The clinic cured his problem and he thought it was an act of God. He than had and nice exercise facility built at the Univ. ORU .They ended up putting C’s name on the building, and put my quote there: “It is cheaper and more effective to prevent a disease than it is to find a cure”. He also put a slogan on the walls: “When a student graduates for ORU, they are spiritually fit, academically fit and physically fit”. Students there must get 10 Cooper points /wk. And take and activity class. C did a study comparing the ORU class to another Univ. with no PE requirement and found ORU was dramatically more fit. Reaching out to youth is important. Chap. 12 He’s 94 and the 4 F’s are: Faith, Family, Friends and Fitness. His son Tyler became the CEO of Cooper Aerobics in 2015, giving C more free time for PR. He writes bimonthly articles in the “Decision Magazine”. He starts his day with prayer and devotions. He read devotions of O.S. Hawkins, who wrote the forward in C’s book and goes there for his annual physical and blessed me with a longer life and said: He is the ‘Father of Aerobics’ and in some ways, has changed the world. As we grow older the aerobic A to strength S ratios change: <40 A/S= 80/20 %; <50 A/S=70/30; <60 A/S=60/40; 61+ A/S= 55/45. He has done experiments with depressurization at high altitude flights of typical 35,000 ft. One only has about 45 seconds to put on an oxygen mask before hypoxia and the loss of consciousness occurs. I put a link on this here as its serious: https://www.jalopnik.com/1910073/plane-loses-cabin-pressure-what-happens/ IF patients want to loose weight he tells them to go on a 1200 calorie diet and have 25% for breakfast, 50% for lunch and 25% for supper, big evening meals are not ideal as they can cause esophageal reflux regurgitation, or heartburn. Often Americans eat 60% of their calories after 6PM, which is not good. Light eating allows better sleep. For the elderly, 7-8 hrs. is good to lessen dementia, pg 186. He had a skiing accident that broke is lower leg and damaged cartilages in his knee. Now he takes the Cooper Compete Joint Supplement that has glucosamine, Chondroitin and Turmeric to lubricate joints and stimulate growth of new cartilage. I noted a supplement on Amazon similar to this: Bronson Glucosamine Chondroitin Turmeric & MSM Advanced Joint Cartilage Formula In his later life he had occasional atrial fibrillation and his Dr. ordered Eliquis for this. as this also prevents blood clots. He also took natural fish oils for an anticoagulant; they have omega-3 that’s a natural blood thinner. I researched this and found fish oils also have vitamin D3. It appears to me that Krill oil supplements may be best, as they may have a low content of heavy metals and appear better than plant omega oils. Here are some links: Can You Get Enough Omega-3s Through Plant-Based Foods? What Experts Say Omega 3 Krill Oil – Review Scout Your health and longevity are your responsibility, and to help that we need regular exercise, keeping our weight down and, choosing healthy foods, and to abstain from tobacco and alcohol. The primary thing is to Get Cooperized! (as in Chap. 1) He has wondered who will take over when he dies? We have given control of the Cooper Institute research arm to the Texas Tech University, and the Tech School of Public Health. There is a new name for this Center: The Kenneth Cooper Institute for Preventive Medicine. He concludes by giving 17 Testimonials- mini chapters, by noted persons. Since Aerobics Program for Total Well Being is the most detailed book, I have purchased it also and may summarize it too.