Ernst van Aaken

Ernst van Aaken (born May 16, 1910 in Emmerich ; † April 2, 1984 in Schwalmtal-Waldniel ) was a German sports doctor and running coach .

Life

Ernst van Aaken was born in Emmerich in 1910. In 1934 he was West German university champion in pole vault and received an Olympic qualification for weightlifting . From 1931 to 1938 he studied philology , education , astronomy and medicine ( surgery ) in Bonn . In 1939 he married Adelgundis Koenen and the couple had seven children. During the Second World War , van Aaken worked as a medical officer in the Crimea and Alsace .

As a pole vaulter, he achieved his personal best of 3.50 m on July 21, 1946 in Duisburg.

After the war, van Aaken initially worked as an assistant doctor in Balve in the Sauerland , before moving to Waldniel in 1947 , where he opened a practice that specialized in sports medicine and open legs .

The Waldniel doctor went down in running history as the “running doctor” and inventor of the “Waldniel endurance training”. As a sports physician, trainer and active person, even before Arthur Lydiard , he was vehemently committed to long-distance running and the training of "pure endurance" with high mileage. Daily endurance run (cycling, cross-country skiing, etc.) for everyone, for women, old people and children, was his motto, along with a moderate diet. He fought the interval training that was prevalent at the Freiburg School until the mid-1960s . He also promoted the then banned cross-country skiing competition for children instead of the anaerobic medium-distance runs. He favored a mix ratio of 40: 1 between pure aerobic training and anaerobic exercise. His training recommendations today correspond, among other things, to the training of Norwegian cross-country skiers .

He also founded the German Association of Cross-Country Doctors. As chairman and trainer of the small Lower Rhine sports club OSC Waldniel , which he founded in 1953 , he won a total of 15 German championship titles with his players and also advised top-class runners, above all Harald Norpoth , who was second in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 over 5000 m .

On September 16, 1967, he organized a marathon in Waldniel , in which he secretly let two women start. One of them, Anni Pede-Erdkamp , came third in the run and set an unofficial world record. Van Aaken is considered the most important pioneer of marathon running for women.

In 1968 Ernst van Aaken was one of the founders of the interest group for senior long-distance runners, which was the first senior sports organization to hold its own championships and was in charge of establishing the general senior athletics movement in Germany.

In 1972 van Aaken was hit by a car while crossing the street while running in the evening. Both legs had to be amputated as a result of his serious injuries.

Over the following years he wrote a number of books. The best known is Programmed for 100 Years of Life . Van Aaken gave lectures, also in the USA and Japan, and mainly organized women's runs over the marathon route and over 100 miles in his hometown Waldniel, today Schwalmtal . There he was made an honorary citizen .

In 1976 Ernst van Aaken was honored with the Federal Cross of Merit. Van Aaken continued his practice until his death in 1984. He advised active runners, especially heart attack and cancer patients, on follow-up care through therapeutic running.

Van Aaken's theories about the importance of pure endurance running, which he developed through observation, but only in the rarest cases based on evidence, have gradually been proven, such as the protection against cardiovascular disease, prevention in relation to diabetes and the metabolic syndrome Reduction of the cancer risk, especially with breast and prostate cancer, reduction of the risk of depression and dementia, pronounced anti-inflammatory effect, reduction of abdominal fat, braking effect of osteoporosis, anti-aging effect, improvement of fat metabolism, etc.

Works

• Outline and theory of a general and chemical physiology of endurance function. Self-published, 1967.
• The permanent function of biological oxidation as cancer prophylaxis. Self-published, 1969.
• Programmed for 100 years of life. Paths to health and performance. Pohl-Verlag, Celle 1974, ISBN 3-7911-0130-7 . (8th edition 1982)
• Critique of the interval training Freiburg imprint from biochemistry & practice. Self-published, 1984.
• The running book of women Meyer + Meyer Fachverlag, Aachen 1989 (2nd edition).

Literature about Ernst van Aaken

• Running pioneers in Germany. Ernst van Aaken , in: r1. runningfirst magazine 2014, No. 1.
• Margret Crisp: Ernst van Aaken - 100 Years (1910-2010) Heimatbote Schwalmtal 2010.
• Richard Englehart: The big old man of endurance training - Coach Ernst van Aaken was well ahead of his time , in: Marathon and Beyond, 2007 (Vol 11, No.2).
• German (trans. Wiepke van Aaken): Richard Englehart: The great old man of endurance training. The coach Ernst van Aaken was way ahead of his time .
• Hans Breidenbach-Bernau: Encounters in the shadow of Heracles , in: Spiridon 4/1985.
• Margret Crisp: That was van Aaken Edition Spiridon 1984.
• Gerhard Uhlenbruck : The provocative prophet , in: Spiridon 4/1984.
• Karl Lennartz : marathon run. From the beginning to van Aaken. Part 1 . (Volume 8 of the series 100 years of athletics in Germany. ), Spiridon, Erkrath 2005, ISBN 3-922011-25-X . Published by the German Society for Sports Documentation .

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst van Aaken in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage Ernst van Aaken
• Homepage of the OSC Waldniel
• Werner Sonntag: Ernst van Aaken in memory. May 2010.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ernst van Aaken: The Waldniel endurance training. In: competitive sport. Volume 1, No. 2, 1971, pp. 12-18.
2. ↑ Arnd Krüger : ... and van Aaken is right. In: Spiridon. Volume 42, No. 3, 2016, pp. 14-16.
3. ^ Arnd Krüger: Ernst van Aaken, MD, and the beginning of women's marathon racing in Germany. In: S. Bandy, A. Hofmann, A. Krüger (Eds.): Gender, Body and Sport in Historical and Transnational Perspectives. Festschrift for Gigliola Gori. Dr. Kovac, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8300-3038-6 , pp. 157-174.
4. ↑ History of the WMA on world-masters-athletics.com ( memento of the original from October 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Gerhard Uhlenbruck : A pioneer with power. In: Spiridon. Volume 40, No. 3, 2014, p. 10.
6. ↑ Richard Englehart: The great old man of endurance training. The trainer Ernst van Aaken was way ahead of his time , taken from: April 26, 2019 (PDF file)