People: Cody Bartlett

CODY BARTLETT: FABULOUSLY FIT PAST FIFTY

Do you envy fifty-something people who are fabulously fit and have bodies that look 25? If so, you want to avoid Cody Bartlett, '67, a litigation attorney in Wolcott, NY, who knows how to throw his weight around. He weighs, in his words, '140 pounds on a 5-5 frame with 8 percent body fat and a resting heart rate of 53.' ]

With proper weight training, he urges, you can be just as healthy. Indeed, his new book Staying Fit Past 50 (Masters Press, 1992) outlines a very simple and sound method. 'Physical education was taught to my generation as a recruitment for competitive sports,' he bemoans. 'Rather than teach us lifetime habits it sent many kids into football until their knees were blown.'

As 'the only graduate of Harvard Law School who is also a certified strength and conditioning specialist,' Cody believes that proper weight training is the secret to lifelong good health. 'Studies show it reduces blood serum cholesterol,' he enthuses. 'It reduces the bad kind, gives you more of the good kind. It burns fat because it increases mobility and puts on more muscle mass. As you get stronger, you do more, the quality of life improves. I believe it even improves digestion. When you lift, you massage your internal organs and push your belly back. With older people, exercising the neck helps ensure against falls. It makes you look good and feel good.'

Despite his current fanaticism, and his many national awards, Cody was once a flabby couch potato. 'At MSU,' he remembers with a chuckle, 'I scrupulously avoided exercise. Honors College got me out of phys ed. My idea of recreation was beer.'

But in 1971, his wife uttered the magic word--'ugh!'--to describe his belly. 'That turned around my whole life,' he says. 'I began to take physical fitness and dieting seriously. Now we go mountain biking, up and down hills, and just feel great. You'd never guess I was the same person.'