Martina Navratilova: Still Going Strong

The most dominant women’s tennis player of the professional era, Martina Navratilova’s focus on physical fitness and diet brought the sport to a new level. At the age of 51, she has finally hung up her racket, but she is refusing to grow old disgracefully. From her home in Aspen, Colorado, she tells Bruce Emond about her recipe for sporting success.

Martina Navratilova does not like the “d” word. Sure, it is up there in the title of her book Shape Your Self: My 6-Step Diet and Fitness Plan to Achieve the Best Shape of Your Life (Rodale Publishers, 2006), but she sincerely believes that the purgatory of lettuce-leaf-and-mineral-water denial fests do more harm than good.

Her advice centers on healthy eating, including choosing from an array of breakfasts and small meals spaced throughout the day; portion control and plenty of varied exercise are also emphasized. It’s a slow but sure approach to reaping the desired results, she says.

She herself is a shining advertisement for the benefits of balanced diet and exercise. After a healthy childhood in her native Czechoslovakia, she moved to the West to play the women’s tour, and quickly fell into the junk food trap (a photograph from the time shows her in a T-shirt with a big burger on the front and the declaration, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!”).

Even with an extra 20 pounds on her 1.73 frame, she continued to win matches through sheer talent and her serve-and-volley game. She defected to the United States in 1975 and landed her first Wimbledon title at the age of 20 in 1978. With the help of the famous Team Navratilova (including former U.S. women’s basketball star Nancy Lieberman and diet guru Robert Haas), she knuckled down to focus on training and the fuel she put into her body, making her the most complete player possible. She was way ahead of her time, a sporting pioneer.

Of course, her muscular frame compared to the more feminine builds of main rivals such as Chris Evert led to raised eyebrows and mean comments about steroid use. In The Rivals, Johnette Howard’s tale of the Navratilova-Evert rivalry and friendship, the naturalized American reportedly screamed in frustration, “Doesn’t hard work count for anything?” after being heckled during a match.

Her legacy today can be found in the diet-conscious, fitness-toned players on the women’s tour. Evert, seeing where the game was headed and after suffering a demoralizing 13 consecutive losses to Navratilova, also hit the gym in the early 1980s and came out stronger and fitter than ever.

Navratilova showed she could still hold her own with the power hitters even in her sporting dotage. Officially retiring in 1994 at the age 37, she returned to the game in 2004, winning several Grand Slam mixed doubles titles.

Her last title, the U.S. Open in 2006, came a few weeks short of her 50th birthday.

Navratilova, who recently decided to take dual Czech-American citizenship and is planning to open a tennis academy in her birthplace, is still a sought-after speaker on health and tennis issues, and is a spokesperson for the American Association of Retired Persons.

Martina, you’re an icon of physical fitness as someone who has taken care of herself and looks better than ever. Did people keep asking you to put your secrets down in the book, or do you feel it really is crisis time for Americans and their physical fitness?
Well, it was both. A lot of people need some guidelines and help. What I realized is that the majority of the diet books deprive people of what they want, then people want that more. I show people what they can have and what they need, and emotionally they need to make the changes instead of just getting cold hard facts. The most important thing is that I tell people to make small changes, gradually, so you can see the changes that make a difference right away and so you’ll be more likely to keep doing it.

So what is for breakfast?
I will have a mango, cereal with rice milk.

You are generally acknowledged for your role in changing the shape of tennis with your diet and fitness regimen. What was the fitness philosophy among tour players when you started your career in 1973?
People were in decent shape, but I just took it to another level. I wanted to be the best tennis player. You can’t just sit back and wait for it to happen.

The game has changed so much – bigger women, more power, more money – do you ever wish for “the good old days” or do you sometimes think, “I was born too early”.
That’s progress. I’m glad when I played. I hit at the right time, although I think that I would have been happy in the 1960s. But I wish now they would change the racket a bit so there would be a bit more variety. You used to have such different styles in the 1970s, all kinds of strengths and weaknesses. And personalities. And now everybody plays the same.

You’ve got to be so good to succeed today. You have a Fabrice Santoro, but he has to be so good today. The equipment has taken over the game.

Everybody hits the ball so hard, you can swing as hard as you want and the ball still goes on. The finesse and the technique and the feel are just not necessary anymore. You can see it in golf, too; I can hit the ball further than 20 years ago. But still they limit it more in competition.

You were reunited with Chris on Oprah recently and you are neighbors. What is it like when you get together?
We have a good time, we know each other well. As different as we seem, we are more alike than we both thought. We have shared similar experiences in life, ups and downs.

There has already been a book about your rivalry. If they made a movie about you two, what would it be called, and who should play each of you?
Angelica Huston (for me), but she’s too old now. For Chris, Jessica Biel is pretty cute but I’m not sure if she’s that athletic. They should call it Friends and Rivals.

I saw some of the comments on fanboards about Oprah, saying how you are so attractive now naturally. Are you someone who would never consider plastic surgery or Botox even as the years creep up on you?
Every time I look in the mirror, I see wrinkles I never saw before. But then I see people who’ve gone too far. Once you start with plastic surgery it’s hard to stop. One of the ways to deal with wrinkles is to fill them out by putting on weight, but I don’t want to do that. I’m really happy where I am in my life. For now, I’m not considering it. I’d rather not.

What was your greatest achievement in the sport?
My whole body of work. It was a well balanced career, singles, doubles, mixed. I did pretty well.

Any match that stands out for you?
The first time I beat Chris, that was very important, 7-6 in the third. I was so excited, it was in Washington, and my mother was there, in 1975. Apart from that there is my first Wimbledon (1978), but that was happy-sad because my family couldn’t be there.

And your biggest regrets?
There are a couple of matches that I would like to do again. But I regret that I left my family behind and my country. But if you have regrets, that means you would like to change things. For me, it’s more about sadness about some things.

Finally, what do you still have to do in life?
I want to keep having a positive impact on the lives of people, those around me and others who don’t know me. I want to continue to be someone whose actions match their words.

Martina Navratilova’s fitness philosophy centers on making slow, gradual changes in life-style that will bring long-lasting rewards. Here are some of her tips:

Breakfast is Best: Some of us skip breakfast in the vain hope that we can eat a few more calories at lunch or dinner. Wrong, says Navratilova. A good breakfast gives you the energy you need to get through the morning and early afternoon, cutting the risk of mid-afternoon fridge foraging. She offers a selection of tasty choices, from oatmeal with nuts, wholewheat pancakes with maple syrup, vegetable and cheese omelet or egg white and bacon sandwich.

Size Matters: Navratilova discusses the stunning increase in portion sizes in the U.S. in the last 35 years. Hamburger patties are now two or three times the size of those when she first came to America, and sodas also are a much bigger gulp (loaded with sugar and empty calories) than before. And, as we are increasingly seeing in Indonesia, as America goes, so does the world. Her advice when eating out is to cut the portion in half and eat the rest for your next meal.

Go Organic: The tennis player says she became a firm fan of organic produce in the early 1980s, way before the trend caught on. She believes that the insecticides and preservatives found in most products cause us to be sluggish and also affect us emotionally.

Get Moving: Do what you can – walking, swimming, taking the stairs at work – because everything makes a difference to your overall health.

Toxic Friends: Yes, you know the type. They either call you as their regular shoulder to cry on about their latest freaky personal crisis or push all your buttons just because they can. Get rid of them and find people who are supportive of your efforts to change and grow.

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