Photo by:
As Chancellor Daniel L. Ritchie works his pecs on the chest fly, a student comes up to ask how much longer he will be on the machine.
Ritchie looks up and politely tells the student that he will get him when he is finished. The student has apparently no idea that the thin and fit man sweating another rep is the man who runs the University of Denver and after whom the Ritchie Center, where Coors Fitness Center is located, is named is Dan Ritchie.
For many students to see Ritchie pumping iron is a shock. They don’t realize that Ritchie, may very well be in better shape than them. His philosophy on exercise that should be copied by the campus community, students included.
It is no coincidence that one of the quotes inscribed on the wall in the Ritchie Center is from Thomas Jefferson. It says, “A strong body makes the mind strong.” This sums up why the Ritchie believes that students should set aside time to exercise.
“Being strong physically gives you confidence,” said Ritchie. “The older you get the more true it is.”
He adds, “We are not made to be couch potatoes. We are designed to swing through the jungle.”
Ritchie believes everyone should find time to exercise regularly. He compares not working out to going out of the house without putting your clothes on.
Ritchie says that he feels incomplete if he doesn’t work out on a consistent basis, but it is not always easy to find the time. Ritchie attributes his consistent workouts to helping him to ski Winter Park, one of his favourite mountains, and climb Colorado Fourteeners about as well as anyone.
A further incentive for working out alongside students is that he can connect to students and get a chance to talk to them under less formal circumstances.
On a recent afternoon, several students came over in between sets, as Ritchie walked panting between sets to say hello. Ritchie knew their names and even asked a few questions about what they were doing.
This work out was an upper body day, because Ritchie likes to rotate between upper and lower body workouts. He began with a series of pull-ups and dips starting off light to get warmed up, but decreasing the resistance weight on the pull-up machine every few sets. Sets usually consisted of eight to 10 repetitions and he did far too many sets for most DU students to count.
“I don’t need to build bulk,” said Ritchie. “Just stay in shape.” This is different because many of the people standing and lifting around Ritchie complete a couple reps with a high weight and then stand in front of the mirror to see how much hypertrophy has occurred. But not Ritchie. He is exercising for the pure joy of working out and the feeling he receives from it.
Next, Ritchie moved to the bench press. So Ritchie, how much do you press? Once there he again did sets of 10 repetitions starting with 70 pounds and moving to 80 pounds. As the sets progressed he never once asked for a spot. He slowed down as he approached the 10th rep of each set, but clinched his teeth and continued to labor away. As the difficulty increases, Ritchie believes that it helps to clench ones teeth to finish the final few reps.
Having finished this gruelling set, Ritchie walked right over the dumbbells, picking up a 45-pound one and began doing side rows. He did the first set with his right arm and then tried to do the same number of reps with his left because he believes his right arm is stronger. After easily managing that weight for a few sets, he picks up a 55-pound dumbbell and continues his sets as his shoulder blades stuck out more and more out of his back.
When he finished, he placed the weights back on the rack and even tidied up other weights that were lying on the floor and not neatly in the stacks. He then completed sets of pullovers first with 45 pounds and then increased the weight to 55 pounds. Pullovers are when one lies on one’s back on a bench, picks the weight up from the floor and pulls the dumbbell over one’s head until it is above one’s chest.
He finished off with a variety of exercises to strengthen his shoulders and deltoids while waiting for his favorite machine to become available. This is none other than the chest fly, which he insists is one of the most popular machine in the fitness center and was even talking about asking for another machine because of its popularity. It appeared that he had had his eye on that machine during the entire workout and was bidding his time to get on it, never thinking of pulling rank on the users before him.
After finishing a workout, Ritchie insists that there is “no substitute, no drug, no anything” for the high he gets from exercising.
