California gave us weightlifting guru Jack LaLanne and gym heavy Joe Gold. Florida conjured up Nautilus inventor Arthur Jones. But who can Arizona contribute to the pantheon of American fitness pioneers? Here are 10 candidates: Arizona trailblazers who shaped the health and wellness space, from bodybuilders to cookbook authors.
Chuck Goad
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 17 percent of Valley residents are older than 65, and many of them want to keep in shape. That’s where the 87-year-old Chuck Goad comes in.
Last year, thanks to one client’s perseverance, Guinness World Records recognized the LA Fitness McCormick Ranch trainer as the oldest active fitness instructor on the planet. While he has a diverse clientele, Goad concedes most popular with a specific age group. “I have a lot of seniors,” he says. “They want someone who knows their problems and has been there. I’ve been there. I feel their aches and pains just the same as they do.”
The former movie stuntman uses his years of experience to tailor his workouts to his older clients’ needs. He’s living proof that, when it comes to exercise, age is truly nothing but a number.
Bill Mays & Faye Stenerson
Before Billy Blanks starred in his first Tae Bo infomercial, Bill Mays incorporated karate moves into an aerobics class. In 1983, the former Phoenix resident, fitness instructor and fourth-degree black belt shared his idea with local instructor Faye Stenerson, a fitness director at Joe Weider Gym. “Faye was fascinated by the movement and the self-defense aspect,” says Mays, who now lives in Oklahoma. “She had a dance background, and she brought a rhythm and grace to it. It made it more palatable for people.”
The two called their creation Karobics, part of a wave of exercise plans that blended fitness with self-defense. In 1993, they made several appearances on ESPN, produced a mail-order workout video and found a competitor in Blanks. Mays says the Los Angeles-based trainer was using the Karobics name for his workouts, but Mays had already trademarked it. He says he brought a suit against Blanks, who eventually changed the name to Tae Bo.
Ultimately, Tae Bo had greater staying power than Karobics, but Mays is proud that he helped launch the trend Blanks rode. “People were excited about getting fit, and we were at the top of the curve,” Mays says.
Jackie Paisley
Already one of the state’s most-sought-after aerobics instructors, former concert cellist Jackie Paisley entered the world of women’s bodybuilding in the 1980s. The Scottsdale native won numerous state and national competitions throughout the decade. Her career peaked impressively in 1989, when she won the Ms. International title, placed fourth at Ms. Olympia and won the runner-up medal at the World Pro Championship.
Paisley retired from competitive bodybuilding in 1991 and launched a successful training business in the Valley. But her health took a turn in the 2000s, when she began experiencing “fatigue and head pain.” Paisley was eventually diagnosed with “silicone toxicity” caused by the breast implants she received while competing. Various sources reported that she had recovered from the condition, but she passed away at the age of 54 in 2017 – possibly from cancer, as was rumored in social media.
Following the lifting of the FDA’s 13-year moratorium on cosmetic silicone implants in 2006, their popularity rebounded, according to the National Institute of Health, accounting for 90 to 95 percent of implant procedures this decade.
Shaun T
In 2007, California-based fitness company Beachbody discovered Shaun T when a talent scout saw the Valley trainer teaching a hip-hop aerobics class. Beachbody singed him up and used informercials to market his workouts Hip Hop Abs and Insanity. According to Beachbody, the latter became the highest-rated infomercial of the decade.
“People still do Insanity,” says the trainer, whose real name is Shaun Thompson. “[The fans and I] been together for 16 years!”
Shaun T ultimately left the Beachbody fold and moved to Mesa to raise his sons with his husband, but he’s still helping others in the age of streaming. During the pandemic, he created the online community Dig Deeper Nation to help people challenge themselves. It has since grown into something much bigger, including supplements, an apparel line and live events.
Shaun T doesn’t solely use his social feed to promote the program – he also shares his own battles with self-doubt to help inspire fans to overcome it.
“People look at [trainers] and think we have it all together,” he says. ‘Guess what? We’re humans. Most people are just afraid to talk about their struggles. I’m not.”
Bill Rodgers
Bill Rodgers (in front position, above) is regarded as one of the greatest distance runners of all time, winning four Boston and New York City marathons between 1975 and 1980. Though known as “Boston Billy,” the runner also a strong Arizona connection.
To wit: Rodgers’ victory in the Boston Marathon 1979 wasn’t just a function of how he trained, but where. Thanks to local entrepreneur Rob Wallack, who had just opened Runner’s Den, Rodgers trained in Phoenix in 1978 and competed in the store’s first 10K. All told, he made Phoenix his primary running base for a dozen years. Extolled the virtues of training in Arizona in a Runner’s World cover story in 1980, he became something of a Valley running evangelist, inspiring other athletes followed suit.
“It was the beginning of runners from the Northeast or Midwest looking for better places to train as our sport was evolving from a strictly amateur sport to a professional sport,” says Rodgers, who spoke to us from New England. “A lot of international runners came to Phoenix to train. It was always my kind of home away from home.”
Phil Pangrazio
When Phil Pangrazio joined the Ability360 board in 1991, he was in a local wheelchair rugby league. But the venues where one could play wheelchair sports in those days left much to be desired. “We started in a grade school cafeteria in Mesa,” Pangrazio says. “The ball would hit the ceiling and the pillars. It was ridiculous.”
He eventually became President and CEO of the local nonprofit in 2000 and helped shepherd the construction of its disability services campus on 50th and Washington streets. Nearly two-thirds of the space is offices, but Pangrazio saw an opportunity in the remaining acreage. He and his team secured the funding to open the Ability360 Sports & Fitness Center in 2011. The state-of-the-art facility is the only gym of its kind in the western United States, complete with two full-size sports courts, an aquatic center and a climbing wall – a true godsend for the adaptive fitness community. Says the now-retired Pangrazio: “I just wanted this thing to look spectacular and be something that people would come to and just be proud of.”
Johnny Gibson
Johnny Gibson, a WWII veteran, barber, bodybuilder and Mr. Arizona 1950, opened Johnny Gibson Gym Equipment in downtown Tucson in 1952. One of the first stores of its kind, it served the city’s boxers, weightlifters and fitness hounds.
“It looked like a gym in a way,” says Johnny’s now-retirement-age son, Steve, who continues to live in Tucson. “A who’s who of weightlifters, bodybuilders and athletes were attracted to this store and to Johnny.”
Along with California gym prophet Jack LaLanne, Gibson helped popularize weightlifting and fitness nationwide. He even became friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger after the bodybuilding champion and future movie star visited the store in the early 1970s.
The operation eventually shut down in the early 2000s, but Johnny never stopped extolling the virtues of staying healthy. He died in June 2010 at the age of 89. “It’s pretty vast what he did, and he did it for the love of the sport,” Steve says.
Jyl Steinback
Before she became known as “America’s Healthiest Mom,” Jyl Steinback went to Arizona State University to pursue an elementary education degree. Her path to fitness began when several male students on campus were rating women who walked by and gave her a cruel score.
Steinback earned her bachelor’s degree, but that pivotal campus moment set her on a different career path. She started exercising vigorously, soon offering her services as a fitness trainer. Then, in 1993, Steinback published Recipes for Fat Free Living, the first of her many best-selling cookbooks. The Scottsdale resident can also list “homeopathic practitioner” and “app developer” on her resume. Her work with the nonprofit organization she founded, Shape Up US, earned her the Community Leadership Award from The President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition in 2012.
Her kids are now grown, but Steinback keeps moving. She recently launched the app Pickleball Dating, inspired by a fellow pickleball player who was entering the dating field. It’s for anyone looking for a partner in life or on the court. “Pickleball really saved me during COVID,” she says. “I met people that I would never have met who are some of my dearest friends today.”
Jo Ellen Caldwell
Before she moved to Phoenix in 1996, Jo Ellen Caldwell was already making a name for herself in the male-dominated worlds of martial arts and kickboxing. At the time, promoters were paying amateur female fighters more than their male counterparts – but the pay gap reversed once the fights became sanctioned. “We would get paid [adequately] as amateurs,” says Caldwell. “But as you moved up into the system, the men would make more money than the women.”
Boxing became Caldwell’s sport of choice when she arrived in Arizona. She even took on International Women’s Boxing Hall of Famer Elena “Baby Doll” Reid in her first professional fight.
Caldwell eventually retired from contact sports but briefly competed and placed in the Women’s Physique Division in several International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation competitions in the 2010s. Now celebrating 25 years with the Phoenix Fire Department, Caldwell currently serves as a deputy chief and runs the department’s health and fitness center, bringing her commitment to fitness full circle.
Tom Hatten
Fitness clubs were already well established in the Valley when Tom Hatten opened the first Mountainside Fitness location in 1991. But most clubs were dour, charmless facilities aimed more toward bodybuilders than the modern crosstraining set. Hatten created a family-friendly culture, helping Mountainside stand apart in the industry and embrace fitness trends other clubs overlooked.
“Group fitness was a big thing for us, and we evolved because not only did we have step, but we had yoga,” says Hatten. “We did Pilates, and then we brought in [cycling].”
Now, 35 years later, Mountainside Fitness boasts over 30 locations statewide. And while the equipment has changed, the encouraging atmosphere and free towel service in the locker rooms remain the same.
