For Tom Sattler, the key to growing old is staying in shape.
The 67-year-old Willowbrook resident, who was inducted into the Fitness Hall of Fame last year with Arnold Schwarznegger and Jane Fonda, said seniors who stay fit pay less for health care and generally enjoy life more.
“This is the first time in the history of the world that seniors have really been motivated to take care of themselves,” said Sattler, director of senior fitness at Alliance Rehab in Oak Brook.
Sattler exercises for two hours a day and thinks everyone should. Staying fit will keep seniors out of assisted living centers or even skilled nursing care, both expensive options, he said.
He coached pro athletes on how to play longer as a fitness coach in the mid-1970s when he was a fitness professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago. The first player Sattler worked with was Steve Stone, then a Chicago White Sox pitcher. After Stone won the Cy Young Award a few years later — the pitcher gave Sattler credit for overcoming his arm problems — the UIC teacher became a fitness coach for the Chicago Blackhawks and then the Cubs.
Sattler said pro athletes today are in much better shape than they were back when he started working with teams 30 years ago. Back then, hockey players sometimes smoked cigarettes during intermissions, he said.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Sattler said. “You’d walk into the locker room and people would be smoking between the second and third period of a game. Of course now, you never see anything like that.”
Serious pro athletes now have personal trainers, some of them Sattler’s students. One student, Tim Grover, was Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan’s personal trainer. Another student, Michael Sena, is a TV fitness personality in Chicago.
“So many people went to that school because of Dr. Sattler only,” Sena said. “They should have named the division after Dr. Sattler for all that he did for the students and how he developed them into the fitness world.”
Sattler’s influence has pushed athletes to higher levels of performance, and most are in better shape than the Johnny Unitases and Mickey Mantles of yesteryear.
With steroids in the public eye, Sattler did not see much abuse while working with teams. However, today’s high-dollar sports leagues provide temptation for athletes to give themselves a boost.
“Do steroids work? Absolutely,” Sattler said. “But you have to beat up the muscles and make them work real hard.”
Sattler said working out helps people live longer, and so does not retiring. Women have an edge over men in their later years, he said, because men have a natural inclination to be couch potatoes.
“Women get in trouble because they do too much,” Sattler said. “Men get in big trouble because they don’t do much at all.”
