The Secret Behind Dara Torres' Abs
This week's CBS Doc Dot Com features 42-year-old Dara Torres, who has been in five Olympics and won every kind of medal a swimmer can win. She juggles motherhood (her 3-year-old daughter, Tessa, is a gold medalist in being cute), a career, and philanthropy. And to top it off, as she proudly displayed during my interview with her, she has serious abs -- world class.
But it wasn't her abs that impressed me the most. Not nearly. It was the pride she took in her work. She understands that there's no free lunch, that every one of her achievements has been paved by hard work and attention to detail.
I am always moved by a person who rolls up their sleeves, committed to doing a good job -- whatever that job is. When I first started dating my wife, Kate, I took her to one of my favorite Italian restaurants. As we sat at our table, I suddenly saw her eyes well up with tears. She explained that she had been observing a bus boy carefully set a large, round table across from us. Seconds from finishing, he had noticed a small stain on the tablecloth. Rather than hide the spot by covering it up, he had painstakingly removed everything, replaced the tablecloth, and begun setting the table again. She was touched by his work ethic and I by her sensitivity and powers of observation.
Ponzi schemers may hog the headlines but I'll bet most people still believe in the value of an honest day's work.
Which brings us back to Dara Torres' abdominal muscles. They didn't just appear. She swims for two hours every morning and then does about seventy five minutes of core exercises. The take-home lesson from Dara Torres isn't about her abs; it's about the work ethic that lies beneath them.
Click here for the video of Dara Torres discussing how she's kept fit physically and mentally after turning forty.
Click here for Dara's blog about her priorities now that the World Championships are over.
Also check out her new book: Age Is Just A Number.
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This is such an impressive and classy lady, in more ways than one!
She showed her true character in the summer Olympics when, just as the 50 meter freestyle swim race was about to commence, she realized the competitor from Sweden had split her bathing suit. Ms. Torres could very easily have stayed focused on steeling herself for the race, but she didn't. She flagged down the judge and asked him to hold up the competition till her competitor had a chance to change.
No shortcuts for this lady, she is class, through and through!
Strangely enough the doctor who wrote this article will probably not admit that using a form of Atkins (Ketogenic) diet will produce that result.
Right on! There is no "free lunch" but there are alternatives to thousands of crunches or long hours of exercise. There are people, many of them serious athletes, for whom time is a premium, so they workout smarter not harder or longer. Lauren Brookes, a well known Kettle Bell instructor has abs to rival Dana Torre's (and she's a mother as well) but instead of hours of work, she lifts the Kettle bells, no crunches, but short and intensive, and engaging the whole body.
There's more than one way to "skin a cat" (heaven forbid I'm against cruelty to animals!) but Dana's story is still an inspiring one nonetheless.
When exercise is part of your job, sure, good things happen. And 42 is not that old, for xsake!
Also - sick of hearing: juggling motherhood and work. No one can physically do both without either a very helpful husband, a great support network or HIRED ASSISTANTS.
Get me any one of those three stat!
Word if she could do all of this at such a high performance level without any help that wpi;d be remarkable regardless of her age.
Do a real story of "Team Torres" handlers and enablers. Nice work if you can get, at least Ms. Torres earned it herself.
for being involved with aport that doesn't bring in any revenue. It's all about vanity.
Seriously, what strikes me is the pervasive sense of... integrity, both individually and respect for it in others.
Dara, Doc, and Mrs. Doc.
Fanned.
"You're only as old as the woman you feel."
-- Groucho Marx
Groucho never met Dara.
Dara Torres has to be one of the hottest female athletes in the world. That stomach of hers, rocks.
"She swims for two hours every morning and then does about seventy five minutes of core exercises."
For most of us, that is ideal, but unattainble.
Three hours and fifteen minutes a day, seven days a week (22 hours, 45 minutes), 52 weeks a year.
Twenty-four hours a day, 10 hours for work or work-related activities, 8 hours for sleep (the recommended amount), leaves 6 hours, taking out the three hours Dara would use for abs and exercise, that leaves 3 hours for family, community, food preparation, housecleaning, religious observance...
word!
It doesn't really take that much to get in shape. For beginners, this would be daunting and discouraging.
But starting at a little as 30 minutes a day, 5 or 6 days a week is plenty to get you on track. Everybody has 30 minutes here and there. Even the busiest person can squeeze half an hour in instead of watching tv.
she's great! the old man drooling over her body then posting it on the internet, not so great.
She is indeed a class act and an inspiration. But to focus on "abs" as a measure of fitness or health is misleading. Maintaining abdominal musculature like that does take tremendous effort, unless one spends many hours per day in maintaining them. And they have nothing to do with being healthy. Many martial arts traditions maintain a 'soft belly' along with energy training and breathing are much healthier for the organism and sustainable.
I love the comparison with the bus boy who so conscientiously did his job even though he could have sloughed over the stained table cloth. Actually, I love the doc's wife who got teary over seeing this small proof that quality is important.
Dara's package, as most of us know, is involved in the quality of her rigor and will to train and perform. If any of us want to feel great in our 40s, 50s, 60s and on, such qualities are necessary preparation. Looking great is tangential.
Her abs are sexy and sex sells. That's why 99.9% of the time the media focuses on her body, not her body of work or her work ethic.
Sexy is in the eye of the beholder. They don't do it for me; I like a softer version of femininity.
Go Dara!
A lesson can be learned from her success. There are no free lunches. You have to WORK (and work HARD) to achieve. Anyone drawing any parallels about sports are similar to life????
The premise that life after 40 is something to be overcome is sad. She's fabulous. And you do have to work VERY hard to be in that kind of athletic shape. However, making it sound like your forties could herald a downhill skid if you don't work out for four hours a day is sending the wrong message to women. Life begins at forty, and you can be pretty great by eating nutritionally with reasonable portions and hitting the gym, or the park path a couple of times a week.
Very well said, shespeaks. Fara's commitment is most admirable, without any doubt, but I wonder if average American women have two hours to devote to swimming every day, let alone another hour-plus of exercise (would that it were so). As you said, our best bet is to keep trying, not give up (because of that cursed slice of cheesecake..lol), and try to get at least a few minutes of exercise every day...
Apologies for the typo, Dara...
One doesn't mention how the rest of us are to afford the expenses of using a pool for hours a day all year round.
Dana Torres is such a class act. If there was ever a role model for the 30+ crowd, she is it!
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