“He’s inspired countless people to do more than they ever imagined they could do.”
One of John Gillingham’s signature exhortations to spur folks who have adored his exercise classes for generations is “There is NO stopping.” But now there is.
Gillingham retired after 63 years in the exercise industry on June 2, his 90th birthday, leading one final workout for more than 60 longtime friends on a gorgeous Saturday morning in a park near the Denver Tech Center. They did hill sprints, bunny hops (with balloons between their legs), step-ups as they blew “birthday whistles” and wall-sits while holding cupcakes in spoons. They huffed and puffed through squats, lunges, pushups, sit-ups and a lot of laughs.
But they were really there to honor Gillingham, who survived tuberculosis as a boy in England and Nazi aerial bombardments as a teenager during World War II; worked as a cowboy in Australia; became an exercise innovator at the Denver Downtown YMCA in
the 1960s; was designated a “Colorado National Monument” by former Gov. Richard Lamm in 1981; and led the Denver Broncos in aerobics classes when John Elway was a shaggy-haired rookie.
Friends came from across the country to make Gillingham’s last workout a love fest. “It’s overwhelming,” said Gillingham, wearing a hat — shaped like a birthday cake — that said, “Happy Older Than Dirt.”
For Gillingham, the secret is summed up in a quote — from the book “Growing Old Is Not for Sissies” — that hangs on a wall in his home near Washington Park: “Age gracefully? I think not. Age ferociously instead. Extend. Question. Give.”
Jay Stone traveled from Sonoma, Calif., to celebrate Gillingham.
“John has been an inspiration to hundreds of people, showing the joy of an active and fit lifestyle,” Stone said. “And ‘aging ferociously.’ He’s inspired countless people to do more than they ever imagined they could do.”
Growing up in England
Gillingham traces his interest in exercise to the tuberculosis he suffered as a boy, which included spending time in an iron lung.
“Thank God the physician said, ‘John, you need to exercise.’ I started playing soccer. Like 8 or 9, I felt the benefits of exercise.”
He has vivid memories of the German Blitz of 1940-41, which began when he was 12. He lived in Portsmouth, a prime target because it was one of the largest ports in the United Kingdom. He remembers the boat lift from Dunkirk and going to bed every night with a suitcase and gas mask in case the sirens called the family to the air raid shelter. He can recall the sound of German airplanes, unmanned bombs and V-2 rockets. He remembers losing friends and “just being thankful you survived the night.”
The war in Europe ended a month before he turned 17. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force, and after he was “de-mobilized” in 1948, he joined the merchant marine. He became smitten by Australia on one voyage, jumping ship in Sydney in 1950.
A fugitive in The Outback
“When you jump ship, you become a fugitive, not because you’re in a land illegally but because when you signed on the ship, they had to put a bond up,” Gillingham said. “When the person doesn’t return, they have to pay because you deserted the ship.”
Bounty hunters were out looking for him. He hopped freight trains and got odd jobs, picking grapes, working as a roustabout in a circus and as a demolition diver in a marine construction project. He became a jackaroo — an apprentice cowboy — learning to herd sheep and cattle.
After the bounty hunters got tired of looking for him, he studied physical education in Sydney, graduating in 1956. When a visitor from the U.S. who was touring Australian YMCAs and universities explained how the U.S. was using exercise programs to fight the problem of juvenile delinquency, Gillingham was intrigued. As a result of that encounter, he later was awarded a two-year scholarship to work with delinquents at a Y on the west side of Chicago.
When that stint was over, he returned to Australia and went to work at the Sydney YMCA, but three years later, his life pivoted: Gillingham had been recommended to work in the U.S. with the YMCA. Gillingham chose Denver, which had a state-of-the-art Y in the heart of downtown.
A humble start in Denver
The YMCA, which stood for Young Men’s Christian Association, was no longer male-only.
Based on a concept of circuit training he had developed in Australia, Gillingham started conducting coed calisthenics classes, but the women and men didn’t want to train in sight of each other. He accommodated their sensitivities by hanging a canvas curtain between them while he led the class from a spot where all could see him.
Eventually, the curtain disappeared. Gillingham created ski fitness classes, perhaps the first in Denver, and remained the athletic director at the YMCA until 1974, when he left to become the athletic director at the Stapleton Plaza Hotel and Fitness Center.
He put on morning fitness shows for three Denver TV stations. He became a friend and trainer for Lamm, with whose help he developed the first known fitness trail in Washington Park. Broncos assistant coach Stan Jones heard about him through his wife, who was in one of Gillingham’s classes, and Gillingham became an agility and aerobics coach for the team in 1983-84.
He served for 12 years on Lamm’s Governor’s Council for Physical Fitness. In the proclamation declaring him an official Colorado monument, Lamm compared him to Longs Peak, Sand Dunes National Monument and bighorn sheep, Colorado’s official animal.
In 1994, he left Stapleton to become outdoor fitness coordinator for the Colorado Athletic Club in the Denver Tech Center.
He retired last month, four months after an atrial fibrillation episode required a cardioversion procedure to restore normal heart rhythm through electrical shock.
“A natal passion in him”
After Gillingham’s last workout, Kim, one of his three daughters, reflected on his vast influence with pride.
“I see people that have had accidents and divorces and death in the family, a community that has helped each other out,” said Kim, who lives in Los Angeles. “His irreverence and joy has somehow allowed the community to bloom around the framework of the fitness. It’s like a natal passion in him. He’s just always wanted to do it. I think it goes back to the war when he was sickly and there was so much vulnerability.”
Perhaps, but he said it’s not about longevity. It’s about quality of life.
“I don’t do it to live longer,” Gillingham said. “The reason I’m 90 probably is genetics. Over all those years of running or exercise or whatever, it’s not to prolong my life but to encourage myself that I can live life. No matter what age you’re at, you should have a zest to do things and get off your (expletive).”