Martina Navratilova Dishes on Staying Fit After 50

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova is about to embark on a new kind of competition – TV’s “Dancing With the Stars.” In this Lifescript exclusive, she discusses sports, her bout with breast cancer, staying fit after 50, and training in high heels... Tennis star Martina Navratilova is used to winning. With 59 Grand Slam titles to her credit, including 20 at Wimbledon, she’s widely acclaimed as one of the greatest athletes in history. Now, at 55, the Czech-born champion is moving on to a different kind of competition – doing tangos and fox trots on the new season of “Dancing With the Stars.” While some celebrities use the show to get in shape, Navratilova is already there, staying fit by eating right and playing sports. She’s still an impressive sight – something she attributes to good genes. “I’ve been blessed with a pretty good physique,” she says. Navratilova’s fighting determination helped her in 2010, when she revealed she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She attacked the illness with the same ferocity she demonstrated on the tennis court, and she announced she was cancer-free just months after receiving treatment. Not long afterward, she attempted to climb Africa’s Mt. Kilimanjaro – an effort that was cut short when she developed a life-threatening lung condition. Now, she’s testing her stamina once again – on the dance floor, in front of a TV audience that can approach 20 million. In this exclusive Lifescript interview, Navratilova discusses her career, health scares and hopes of snagging yet another trophy – this time, a big, shiny mirror ball. What has been harder for you to train for, tennis or dance? Tennis is more physically demanding. At my current level, I can dance in the studio for four hours and I’m fine. There’s no expert who plays tennis for four hours [straight]. But [dancing is] definitely straining. I’m asking my body to learn new movements and positions, and I’m using very different muscles. It has also been draining mentally, because I have to think so much. I can’t relax yet. Have you had any stiff muscles or bruises? No, I had a couple of fumbles, but nothing major. And I hit [my dance partner] Tony Dovolani a couple of times, but he’s all right. I could definitely use a massage, but I always am a bit on the tight side. I don’t get them as much as I should. Has it been tough doing dance moves in high heels? It’s tricky. They’re not as high as I was afraid they would be. Still, it’s completely different. Other celebrities are complaining about their feet. My feet are fine, but I have an interesting injury – a stiff left toe. It has been a little more difficult because of that. Today I was in high heels for three hours, and my toe’s feeling better now than it did a couple of days ago. Did you injure your toe on the tennis court? No, it’s actually a soccer injury. I used to kick a ball a lot when I was little, and jammed that joint. Then I stopped kicking the ball that way, so it’s fine. But I think now I have a little arthritis in that toe. It doesn’t bother me [when I] play tennis, [although] I can feel it a little bit on some shots. In the heels, it’s an issue, but it’s not preventing me from training as much as I need to. Is the arthritis only in your toe, or do you have other areas of pain after years of playing sports? That’s the only ache I have. My right knee aches when I ski – it hurts me on the ski lift – but it doesn’t bother me while I’m skiing. My body is really amazing, because when I see other tennis players, other athletes my age, they have all kinds of issues. I’ve been very fortunate. I had a good body to begin with, and I worked and nourished it with good nutrition. It’s a combination of all those things – I just don’t feel my age. So many women look up to you not only for your career accomplishments, but also for talking openly about your breast cancer. What made you go public? It took me by surprise, needless to say. I’ve been leading a healthy life for such a long time. This was something that I completely couldn’t control. When I started fighting and dealing with [breast cancer], I realized that I had a great platform to encourage women to take care of themselves. I couldn’t just be quiet about it. I had to speak out. It’s been very meaningful to have that opportunity. It was bad news, but, overall, I was lucky. When people ask me how I’m doing, I say, “I have 10 fingers, 10 toes and two boobs.” I see you kept your sense of humor. How important was that during breast cancer treatment? Laughter always helps. It doesn’t hurt. What was the breast cancer treatment you underwent? Did it include chemotherapy? I had no chemo. It was just DCIS [ductal carcinoma in situ], which meant [I needed] a lumpectomy and radiation. But the radiation [lasted] six weeks, because I had a more aggressive grade of DCIS. Some patients are paralyzed with fear once they’re diagnosed. How did you steel yourself for breast cancer treatment? That’s not my personality. I’m always completely [focused on] the solution. I would always want to know what’s going on and deal with it. For example, if my tooth starts hurting, I go to the dentist immediately. I don’t wait until it gets worse. I’m a very proactive person that way. Where does that resolve come from? Maybe it comes from being a tennis player and having to take care of my body whenever I had a little ache or pain. If it got worse, I couldn’t play. So I was meticulous about [staying fit and] taking care of myself, which I think is why I lasted such a long time. Also, the positive attitude comes from being an athlete. That carried me through this. I wanted to deal with it right [away] – I wasn’t going to wait and see if it went anywhere. Later that year, you attempted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and developed high-altitude pulmonary edema – fluid in the lungs. How dangerous was that? That was actually more dangerous than the cancer, which I didn’t know when it was happening. It was only after I got off the mountain that I found out I could have died up there. That scared the s--t out of me, because it was immediate rather than maybe months or years down the road. But by [the time I found out how serious it was], I was out of danger. It was a strange thing. People die on that mountain every year, and I could have been one of those statistics had I stayed one more day. What were the symptoms of high-altitude pulmonary edema? I just felt lousy, but nothing was hurting, and I still was thinking [clearly]. My head was still working. Maybe that’s why the doctor [with the group] didn’t know what it was, because I was still kind of with it. It was only when I got to the hospital that the doctors said, “One more night there and we would not be talking to you.” Did you hike down the mountain? They had to take me off the mountain on a stretcher – 4-1/2 hours down on a toboggan on a wheel. I would have tried to go down [on my own], but I might have gotten into trouble. It’s so physically demanding there that my lungs might have gotten worse before I got off the mountain. Did you feel like you had a serious problem? Oh, yeah. I had no energy. I had a hard time walking 2 yards. Why did you climb Mt. Kilimanjaro? I thought it would be fun. I had no reason to believe I would have any issue, because I lived at 8,000 feet [in Colorado]. But I got sick – I had food poisoning the night before the morning we started the climb. I woke up with stomach cramps and diarrhea, and that’s what put me under. By the second day I was already sapped of energy. If I hadn’t eaten that bad fish, I think I would’ve been OK, because I was in good shape. Would you try it again? If friends wanted to do it, and the situation presented itself, I wouldn’t not go. But I don’t need to conquer it. Many women in the public eye are secretive about their age, but you’re a spokeswoman for the AARP. Did you have any reservations about aligning yourself with a retiree group? It was funny, because I went from being in a sport where everybody was 20 years younger than me into a group of people where everybody is older than me, with nothing in between. But I was really encouraged and inspired by the attitude of AARP members – particularly the people who come to the conventions, speeches and seminars. They’re just so full of pep and energy, and they want to get the most out of their lives. I thought: I would love to make a positive difference here. You still look buff. How are you staying fit now that you’re retired from professional tennis? I’m not in nearly as good shape as I used to be or would like to be – because I don’t have the time to do everything I want to be doing. But it’s all relative. My body has been through so much over the years. I don’t train. I was in the gym [maybe] five times last year. I do some push-ups and then I just play sports. I play tennis. I used to play hockey, but now that I’m not [living] in Aspen anymore, I don’t do much of that. I bike, I run. Now I’m trying to elongate [my muscles]. So, you’re just naturally cut like that? [Laughs.] I’ve always had a pretty good physique. I had good biceps even when I was little, before I did anything. Is eating healthfully one way of staying fit? Of course. I’ve been eating right for 30 years, so my body’s pretty fine-tuned. I don’t eat bad food really. I struggle with weight, and if I ate as much as I like, I would totally put on weight. I’m about 5 pounds higher than I’d like to be, but it’s not bad. I got a little bit of a belly after menopause. [“Dancing With the Stars”] is going to totally take care of that, with being on our feet for 4-5 hours a day. It’s going to get rid of those few pounds. Do you think you’ll win “Dancing With the Stars?” I want to do well. I would love to win, but it’s not in my control. When you play a match, it’s up to you whether you hit the winning shot or not. This is completely out of my hands. I’m training very hard, and Tony is a great teacher. I love working with him. We really hit it off immediately. I’m fully into the [show’s] process of wigs and glitter and all. I’m going to go all out. Season 14 of “Dancing With the Stars” premieres Monday, March 19 on ABC. To learn more about breast cancer, visit our Breast Cancer Health Center. What's Your Breast Cancer Risk? The biggest risk factor for developing breast cancer is simply being a woman, though a small percentage of men develop it, too. Fortunately, with better screening processes for early detection, breast cancer doesn't have to be fatal.