I’ve always been interested in how famous men worked out. We’ve broken down Steve McQueen’s routine and Bruce Lee’s training here on AoM before, and every time I go down one of these rabbit holes, I come away inspired about how these guys approached fitness: they trained so they could do the work they did to the best of their ability.
So when I had Beau L’Amour — son of the great Western novelist Louis L’Amour — on the podcast a couple of years ago to talk about his dad’s life and habits, my ears perked up when he mentioned that his father worked out every single day for an hour or two in the afternoon, right into old age.
The conversation moved on, so I didn’t circle back to ask exactly what L’Amour did for his workouts, but that question has been rattling around in my head ever since.
So I recently decided to email Beau to see if he remembered what his dad’s daily workout looked like.
To my pleasant surprise, Beau wrote back immediately with something even better than I had expected. Instead of sending me a general description of Louis’ workouts, he sent me scans of his dad’s typed weekly to-do lists with completed items struck through in red pencil. On these weekly agendas, Louis included his workouts for the week.
The ones he sent span from 1968 to 1983, and they cover a lot more than exercise. A single week might include blocking out the first chapter of a novel, answering all his mail, reviewing his Chinese and French, reading to his kids by the fire, and teaching them how to fall and box correctly. It was inspiring to see that the young autodidact in Education of a Wandering Man continued his self-education even into his 80s and intentionally scheduled it with the same rigor he scheduled his workouts. But it’s L’Amour’s training I want to dig into here in this article.
Why Louis L’Amour Trained
Beau gave me the backstory of his father’s exercise habit. Louis was born in 1908, trained as a boxer, and worked physical labor jobs throughout the 1920s. He boxed and trained for the sport, focusing primarily on speed and endurance. By the early ’30s, he was trying to make it as a writer while training young boxers, which kept him in shape.
Then came WWII. His job in the Transportation Corps had him leading convoys of double gasoline tankers through burning towns in Europe, but the food was plentiful, and the trips into nearby cities were frequent, and he came out of it carrying extra weight.
Louis continued to exercise after the war, but he got really serious about it in 1966, when he was 58 years old. Like other writers, he spent a lot of the day sitting, and this exacerbated a niggling back pain he’d had since the war. The pain was getting in the way of his work. It got so bad that he went to a doctor for advice.
In a letter written in 1976, L’Amour recalled what he did next:
When my doctor told me I should not lift anything heavy, not even my own child, that was more than ten years ago. It was only then that I started lifting weights. I never had before, beyond what I had done in working around the country…I started lifting weights carefully, with very light weights, as I’d had a bad back since riding in jeeps during WWII. Now I can lift five to six thousand pounds in a couple of hours, and after my work-outs I feel great…since I began lifting weights I’ve had no more back trouble. I’d simply been sitting too much, and my muscles had softened, and there are some bones that need the strong muscles around them. I’ve never had to go back to that doctor because my back trouble ended with proper exercise.
L’Amour’s doctor told him to lift nothing. Louis responded by lifting thousands of pounds a session and curing the very problem the doctor was worried about. I love that. Sounds like a young Teddy Roosevelt, who, when his doctor told him not to overexert himself, decided to do the opposite and “make his body.”
There was another reason Louis started lifting when he was nearing 60. In 1974, he wrote in his journal:
I’ve not yet done a book that really pleases my taste…One reason I exercise, too. I am just learning to write, just gaining command of my medium, and must work for a long, long while.
Louis kept training because he wasn’t done creating his art yet, and he wanted a body that would hold up long enough to continue honing his craft and putting his work into the world. He trained for what Nietzsche called “Great Health.” Inspiring!
The Louis L’Amour Workout
Beau L’Amour training with his dad, Louie, back in the day. From the Louis L’Amour Facebook Page.
Alright, so what did ol’ Louis do for his fitness routine?
Remember, the man on these sheets is in his sixties and seventies, and the routine stays remarkably consistent across fifteen years of lists. It breaks down into three parts: conditioning, the iron, and discipline at the table.
Conditioning (the Boxer’s Base)
The Lifts (BB & DB — Barbell and Dumbbell)
L’Amour performed a circuit 6X a week that worked both his upper and lower body and included these exercises:
- Bench press
- Overhead press
- Flies
- Curls
- Rows
- Triceps
- Grip work
- Shrugs
- Lat pulldowns
Discipline at the Table
- Standing goal to stay under 220 lbs — sometimes he’d try to get down to 210
- Snacking was skipped when he was cutting weight; “No between meals,” as one sheet bluntly puts it
There’s nothing fancy here. L’Amour skipped rope, hit the bag, ran through his lifts, and ate sensibly. He aimed to do a variety of exercises, treated his workouts like a standing appointment, and got in one to two hours of physical activity every afternoon.
I lift for plenty of reasons, but as a guy moving through middle age, L’Amour’s reason for lifting is the one that increasingly resonates. I want to stay strong enough to keep doing the work I haven’t finished yet.
Thanks to Beau for sharing these snapshots of his dad’s life. He’s got a new novel out — Skyring Water — that he collaborated with his father on, both before and after Louis’ passing.
For more inside details on Louis L’Amour’s life and work, listen to our podcast with Beau:
