Booth Gardner matches muscles with Arnold Schwarzenegger
Booth Gardner and Arnold Schwarzenegger at the IMA.
Sporting biceps to match his political muscle, Gov. Booth Gardner, ’58, joined actor/athlete Arnold Schwarzenegger for a workout at the UW’s Intramural Activities Building on July 21. Schwarzenegger, chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, was in town for the opening of the 1990 Goodwill Games.
The two met at the IMA and went through an abbreviated routine—a bicycle warm-up, machine exercises and bench pressing—to promote fitness before a crowd of reporters and students.
Gardner credits his physical condition—which impressed even Schwarzenegger—to a fitness program that includes twice-a-week tennis supplemented by a three-times-a-week aerobic weight workout. The 1958 business administration graduate usually exercises at the end of a long workday, with one of his gym’s trainers keeping him on track.
“After I push myself all day long I’m dead tired and find I don’t have the discipline to do it on my own,” he admits. “For me the benefits are as much psychological as physical. I feel better and work better. If l go (without it) for more than two days it starts to bug me.”
His public workout with the star of “The Terminator” and “Conan the Barbarian” produced some “good natured teasing” around the capitol, says Gardner.
“Some of the women said they were jealous because I got to shower with Arnold.”