Dan Brown '05
Dan Brown ’05 played a few sports in high school, including tennis, but was never one to consider exercising. But for the last year, since the spring semester of his sophomore year, Brown has followed a rigid diet and exercise routine, including most recently giving up all processed sugar.
“I exercise five days a week, usually, sometimes six if I can pull it off. I lift weights for a half-hour, forty-five minutes and then do some kind of cardio for a half-hour, usually running.”
Brown exercises for appearance and to stay healthy, but he also does it to structure his life and develop a routine, something he admits is not easy to do.
“If I’m able to maintain one aspect of my routine that I do everyday, like working out, it helps me stay disciplined to do everything else,” said Brown, “A good chunk of students try to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but I think it’s really hard. Maintaining a routine, especially when you’re stressed-out with work, it’s just one more thing you have to do. It’s a hard thing to maintain but it’s worth it.”
Besides finding it difficult to schedule time to exercise, it is difficult with Grinnell’s limited facilities to find space or machines to use.
“I don’t really think that the college itself pushes physical wellness at all, especially with the message they send with their facilities. The reason that the machines are always so crowded at 4:30 is that there are only [a few] cardiovascular machines.”
Another difficulty of maintaining a healthy lifestyle under intense stress is the struggle of avoiding all certain foods at the dining hall. For Brown, the dining hall is tricky though they usually offer a healthy option
“it’s tough because they throw [the food] in front of you…I give myself time-off and eat what I want, but I try and avoid a lot of the more unhealthy stuff.
—Jess Ward
Sara Eilert '04
Talk to Sara Eilert ‘04 about her work out habits, and she’ll frequently mention how exercise helps her to organize her time.
“When I know that I want to work out,” she said, “I have to work my day around that.”
A four-sport athlete in high school, Eilert found it difficult to give up sports when she got to college. “Being on a team gives a certain structure to your day. And when you get to college you lose that outlook. You forget you have that part of your day.”
Eilert goes to the PEC most days of the week, typically spending about an hour there at a time. After doing some sort of cardiovascular activity—frequently the elliptical trainer—for 30 to 40 minutes, she spends another 15 to 30 minutes on weight training and sit-ups, “depending on how tired I am, and what else I have to do.”
Though Eilert is from Grinnell, her work out routine varies in the summer. “Since the weight room is open only limited hours, I started running a little bit. I ran when I was abroad, too.”
Eilert studied in Belgium the first semester of her junior year. She found attitudes toward fitness similar there, though they had only recently been adopted. “They’d just built a new fitness center at the university I was at. So everyone was really excited about it and getting into it. They already played sports, but they didn’t do the whole treadmill, free-weights thing.”
Eilert’s also noticed more Grinnellians getting into the “treadmill, free-weights thing” since her first year. “In the four years since I’ve been here, the weight room has gone from a place primarily for athletes to a place where everyone goes once or twice a week. And I think that’s why the administration rightly saw a need to change the current facilities.”
Eilert thought the weight room’s atmosphere could be improved. “It’s kind of drab right now. Windows would be nice, and maybe a couple of TVs.”
While generally happy with the equipment, she thought there should be more of it, which would in turn solve other problems, such as waiting time. “The hours are pretty good; I don’t think there’s much [the administration] can do to extend them. And when there’s more equipment, there won’t be that need.”
In addition to the expected physical benefits Eilert reaps from exercise, she also finds working out helps her mentally. “It’s a good stress release. I concentrate better on my academics. That’s where working out really helps me—my overall mental health and focus.”
—Erin Petty
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Russell K. Osgood, President On his workout routine: I get up at about five of 5 a.m. and go shooting out the door and go running for four to eight miles, depending on how awful the weather is, meaning cold. I don’t particularly mind it if it’s raining or hot, but if it’s very cold it’s a shorter run. Then I go swimming at 11 a.m. virtually every day for about a half an hour. Sometimes in the summer, it’s a really beautiful day and it’s hot and not only will I go running in the morning and swim at noon but I’ll go running at 4:30, because that’s actually when I prefer to run, but it’s so hard for me in my current job to run at 4:30. On how he began exercising: I was going to college and I had a very Yankee father; he’s an old Massachusetts guy. Never says anything to his kids about anything. So he’s dropping me off at college and he hands me a letter and I thought, “wow, it’s money” like everyone thinks. So he leaves. … The letter said “Dear Russell, you don’t exercise enough. You should exercise more. It’s important for living your life.” It wasn’t like weight or anything like that. This was September of 1965 and it didn’t make an immediate impact. But three weeks later, I came back to my room and I was frustrated. I was taking a really heavy schedule and I wasn’t sleeping that well. And I thought “I’m going to go running,” which I’d never done and was a relatively uncommon thing. I went outside and it was absolutely beautiful outside. I was pathetic. I think I might have run half a mile, but I loved just being outside and I enjoyed running. So that is when I started running and I have run almost every day since. His wellness advice: My punch line is that I strongly recommend for all of you not to be crazy like me. I probably exercise it too much. I think I’m too fanatical about it but it just helps you keep balanced in life and keep centered. |
Jin Feng, Chinese
On her workout routine: “I normally run for 45 minutes first thing in the morning. Inside now because it’s so cold and snowy outside. I do a little bit of rowing, about five minutes. Then I ride a stationary bike for a little bit. Then I go to the pool to swim. I’m not a very good swimmer. I just want to get into the water and relax a little.”
On swimming: “I just learned how to swim last year. I had never been in a pool my whole life but John Pfitsch (former athletic director) taught me how to swim. The way he taught was he stood by the pool and told me how to do it. But I’ve signed up for a swimming class this semester. I’m going to learn with Coach Hurley. She’s very good. I need to improve my technique and so forth. So that will happen the second half of the semester.
Swimming is a very good exercise. It’s gentle on your knees and ankles. It’s a very Taoist sport because you have to learn how to relax and how to work with the water, not to fight against it. “
On her diet: “I’m pretty careful about what I eat. For one thing it’s very busy working here. I have a lot of things to take care of, so I have to take care of myself first. Because health is the most important thing. Without health you can’t do anything, basically.”
Jonathan Chenette, Music
On his workout routine: Every morning, about ten til 6 a.m., I arrive at the PEC and do 50 minutes on a stair stepper and most days I do five or ten minutes of lifting.
I’ve always woken up very early. Usually I wake up before my alarm rings. I used to deliver newspapers at 4:30 in the morning and I think I got in the habit of being an early riser. It does mean I’m not awake much after 10:30 or 11 p.m.
On how he got started working out: I’ve been running almost every day since 1990. I started running during a period when I was having back problems. At first I thought, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t exercise when I have back problems.” Then after I tried running a little bit I realized my back problems went away. Then I decided that running would be a part of my wellness. I’ve almost never been sick since I started in my routine. I’ve never missed a class at Grinnell for illness. I’ve felt a lot better since I started exercising. I mean, I always rode my bike or walked to work but I never set aside time for exercise.
On his diet: My appetite is a little bit less when I exercise. But one reason I work out, one thing that motivates me, is that I don’t want to cut back on what I eat. I love chocolate, for instance. I feel better about indulging in some vices when I get an early start where I burn off a bunch of calories. That secondary motivation is an important one.
Minna Mahlab, Science Learning Center Director
On yoga:
People think of yoga as just physical postures. In fact, it has a lot of different parts to it. Part of my yoga practice is also meditation, breathing and even chanting. I meditate and do the breathing practices every single day. I do the physical practices at least three times a week.
On the length of a yoga workout:
“It’s minimum of an hour and a half. Preferably two and a half hours. It’s kind of hard to fit it in. I don’t mean to make the impression that if you don’t have ten minutes that you can’t do something useful for the body. If you get up every day and spend five minutes doing the sun salutation, which I try to do every single day, that’s a fabulous thing.
On when she began doing yoga:
I broke my back in my mid 20s. I was in graduate school at the time. I couldn’t afford physical therapy, and people suggested that I take up something like yoga or modern dance to open up my spine, and I did both kinds of classes for years.
I did yoga classes for a while with someone who was very fit and competitive, and I stopped doing it because I just wasn’t able to. I picked it up again about five or six years ago in a different tradition which was more about respecting your body and its abilities. That just made a lot of sense to me.
On her diet:
Yoga has its traditions in Aryuveda, which is a very ancient medicine that has its own very strict and formalized diet. I try very much to be a vegetarian, and for the most part, I avoid all processed foods.
One of the great things about doing yoga is you pay more attention, you’re just more aware of your body so you notice when you’re doing something unhealthy to yourself, like eating garbage. If you eat crappy food, you feel crappy. So you have to take better care of yourself, which is really nice. I would say it affects my diet in that way. I try to practice yoga as I try to do all things, which is in moderation.
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