Q 6

PLAYBOY: So inventing that Nautilus shell-shaped device was your big breakthrough.

Arthur Jones: I was living in Africa in 1968 and, as usual, I'd built myself a machine. It was something of an improvement, but it was still a long way from being what I wanted. One night, I got an idea that I thought had great merit. I immediately called one of my people and, together, we drew a part over the telephone. I said, "Build it and have it here by eight o'clock in the morning." Well, we installed it and it did not work. It was a total, absolute, abysmal failure. But it failed so obviously that for the first time, I understood why.

I knew how to modify and rebuild it. Immediately, other problems presented themselves. I stayed with it night and day and slowly solved the problems, one after the other. The Nautilus machine is a thinking man's barbell--nothing more or less. For the first time in history, a machine provides exercise for all of the muscle structure through a complete range of motion.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: Just how many ways can you build a strong body?

Arthur Jones: There is only one way to build a strong body, and that is to exercise against a resistance that is high enough to provide overload. For an old lady, that may mean getting out of her chair and walking across the room. For someone else, it may mean doing squats with an 800-pound barbell. When you exercise with overload, you're sending a signal to your body saying, "This muscle is asking me to do things that I cannot do. It's expecting me to perform the impossible--so make me stronger." And the body will respond to that by growing, if it can. Exercise itself doesn't produce anything. It's a catalyst that stimulates your body to grow.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: How did you acquire your exercise expertise?

Arthur Jones: There aren't any experts in any field. There are people who are arrogant enough to announce they're expert. There are other people who are dumb enough to believe them. I went to the ninth grade. I don't consider myself an expert on anything. I've been curious all my life. I have done research all my life in a wide variety of fields.

At the moment, we're doing large-scale research with a gynecologist in an attempt to determine what, if any, beneficial results can be produced for pregnant women by training them before, during and after childbirth. We're entering into our sixth year of research with poisonous snakes. We're nine years--and many millions of dollars--into research into computerization of medical tools and exercise equipment. Of course, I would like the research to develop into something of value.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: As a big-game hunter, did you ever venture so far into the jungle that your bearers got frightened and fled?

Arthur Jones: I never used bearers. I usually traveled light. As Daniel Boone said, "I've never been lost, but sometimes I didn't know where I was for a few weeks." If you're lost and you're the leader, it's not a good idea to tell the other people that you're lost. Besides, most of my hunting has not been for the purpose of killing. I was never a trophy hunter. You don't see stuffed heads or tigerskins on the floor. I have some rattlesnake hides, but those are from snakes we were raising for research and they died of a virus.

I've captured animals alive all over the world for the purpose of relocating them. In some cases, they were going to be killed in a certain area and I moved them to where they could survive. I was in the animal business, buying and selling them to zoos and petshops, for quite a number of years. I look back on that with a lot of regret, because I don't particularly approve of zoos. Many of the types of animals I worked with are now almost extinct.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: Jungle borders are known to be porous. Are any foreign powers still out to dun you for customs infractions?

Arthur Jones: I haven't been over their hit lists lately. In 1968, I had built a studio in a place called Rhino Hill near Salisbury, Rhodesia. When things began to fall apart there, I came back to this country; and after I left Rhodesia, Ian Smith's government seized all my assets: seven ground vehicles, two aircraft, a brand-new helicopter, 5,000,000 feet of film, two studios full of equipment, cameras, weapons, ammunition, family records going back two centuries, my wife's insect collection and children's toys. I'm not all that enamored of the government over there. But don't ask me to give you rational explanations for other people's insane actions.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Were you a fearless leader?

Arthur Jones: Anybody who's not afraid is a damn fool or a liar and probably both. But I refuse to live in fear.

I was sitting in a boat one time in the Caprivi Strip in Africa and I glanced back over my shoulder and made eye contact with a large crocodile that was stalking me from a distance of about 12 feet. Within another second or two, he'd have had me. That was obviously his intention. It didn't upset me, you know. Why worry about what didn't happen? You'd better concern yourself with what might happen next.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: You once risked your life to save a co-worker from the jaws of an angry lion. Were you aware of the danger then? Or was it a reflex action?

Arthur Jones: It would not have gone through my mind to do anything else. There's a tendency not to want to get involved, which I suppose is fear of some sort. I don't consider myself brave. I've spent a good deal of my life avoiding danger. Any time you've looked out the plane window and seen an engine burning off the wing, you've had all the adventure you want. But if you lead an active life, if you get around the country or around the world, you're going to have adventures.