The Secret To Harvesting Gold? It Is DNA Boosted By Hard Work Around The House.

Ed Burke, 84, in Sacramento at the USATF Masters Outdoor Championships claiming No. 1 in the world in the hammer throw. Ed says DNA gives him a starting advantage, but read this story on what he had to go through to put that DNA to work. Photo by Sandy Triolo.

By Ray Glier

Ed Burke, 84, is No. 1 in the world in the hammer throw. He is No. 2 in the weight throw. I asked Ed what advice he has for a 65-year old who wants to be fit at 84 and still compete in Masters track & field, or any sport, for that matter.

“Get rid of your gardener,” Ed said.

Seriously?

“That’s a lot of it,” Burke said. “Push it and pull it and get yourself tired.

“And have good DNA.”

We’ll get to the DNA, but first the yard.

Burke owns five acres on the side of a hill in Los Gatos, Ca. He mows, he weed eats, he swings a pick axe at rocks to clear ground, and pushes a heavy wheel barrow. Ed was doing all that at 65. He’s still doing all that.

It is Yardio, heart work through hard work with a shovel or a rake, instead of Cardio, which many get from a machine or running.

It is also keeping muscle tone by pulling rocks out of the ground and slinging them in the wheel barrow. Burke was a laborer on his own construction project in his 70s lugging timbers for skilled carpenters renovating family properties.

So, really, just fire your gardener.

“I have five acres, a small vineyard, a lot of weeds, and it's on the hillside, so I'm out there with a weed eater, a shovel, a pick, and I'm working a chainsaw,” Ed said. “I'm doing that kind of thing every week.

“So if I go out to mow there is a bench press close by. The weights are on it. I'll lay down, and maybe with 120 pounds on it, do 20 repetitions of a bench press, and get up and walk on and go mow the lawn.”

Ed does throw for a workout, but if he tries to go out there and throw and throw, he loses focus, he said. He limits himself to 10-12 throws, which makes it easier to get the mechanics right.

It’s a lesson for Geezer Jocks. You decide how hard to squeeze for juice.

**

Here is the other important stuff we haven’t gotten to. You will be interested in these next two minutes.

The DNA and the injuries.

Ed is world famous in track & field and not just because he owns the world record for Men 70+ in the hammer, which he set in 2010 with a throw of 59.04 meters.

Burke was on three U.S. Olympics teams (1964, 1968, and 1984). He finished 7th, 12th, and 18th, respectively. Favored to at least medal in 1968 in Mexico City, Burke said he was unjustly called for fouls on his first two hammer throws. Disappointed in the officiating and his performance, Ed retired from the sport.

At 44, Burke completed a comeback with a personal best throw of 243 feet, 11 inches in the World Championships and subsequently made the 1984 U.S. Olympic team.

The highlight was being asked as the oldest athlete on the American team to carry the flag to lead the U.S. into the Los Angeles Coliseum. The picture of the brawny Ed carrying the flag aloft with one arm—as if it was a “matchstick” said one sportswriter—is epic. (see below).

Burke had some natural strength having grown up on a dairy farm. As soon as you are able as a child you are asked to pick up things and carry them. His father, also named Ed, had strength and resilience and it was passed on.

Burke knows how much sweat he poured into his sport, but he also enhances what was handed down to him. He worked in jeans to boost his genes.

Ed didn’t go into farming. Instead, he built a training facility and turned it into a thriving business, which included producing Olympic-caliber throwers. He also had fun with longboard surfing and mountain biking in his 40s and 50s, more reasons he enhanced his DNA to become top-shelf in Masters track.

“At age 65, in 2005, I sold my business, and I decided, ‘Why don't I go out and start throwing the hammer in these masters meets?’,” Burke said. “It excites me when they call my name and I have to get in the ring and perform, no matter how far it goes.”

The problem was staying healthy to compete. He slid down hills working his property and bloodied himself. Many times.

Burke has four vertebrae titanium implants in his neck. He has had operations on nerves for numbness and pain in his hands. Then there are the atrial fabulation episodes and the five times his knees have had to be scoped and cleaned.

The worse stuff came earlier this year.

His prostate went helter skelter and lost all discipline and brawny Ed said he was incontinent for two months, which meant a diaper. Burke lost 33 pounds. He was bedridden after the “Aquablation “ procedure where a image-guided high-pressure water jet destroys excess prostate tissue to relieve BPH symptoms.

Ed also had Covid twice this year.

“My body just attacked me,” Burke said.

Then came the finishing touches of his Horatio Alger type story of a humble boy persevering to do something remarkable.

In early spring 2024, Ed gradually pushed aside the malaise of bed and the house and his diet of hot water and lemon juice. He went to watch a small local Masters track meet. He wasn’t going to throw. He ended up throwing. The hammer went 40 meters.

“It wasn’t far, I could actually read the label on the hammer,” Burke said. “But it was fun.”

He kept throwing this spring and wound up in Sacramento for the USA Track & Field Masters Outdoors Championships. Ed heaved the hammer 50.37 meters, which got him a gold and a No. 1 world ranking.

Burke wants to try and eclipse the 80 Men’s world record of 50.69 in Lisle, Illinois in September.

“All these things happen to all of us,” Ed said of his injuries and disease. “So you just got to do what you can do today.”

And that’s a lesson that has nothing to do with DNA.

This is Ed at 44 leading the U.S. team into the LA Coliseum for the 1984 Games.

This is mighty Ed earlier this year. Vulnerable like the rest of us, he is back up and at it on his property and in the throwing ring.