How a former bodybuilder helped Keith Van Horne get his life back

The smell of dew on the morning grass still bothers Keith Van Horne. It brings him back to Platteville, Wisconsin, where he would lie on a wet field, stretch and dread the first of two brutal training camp practices.

Ahead, there would be a nutcracker drill and run game work. Full pads, and lots of hitting. It would get hot, maybe 100 degrees. And players might go down. IVs might be necessary. And regardless, there would be sprints after practice.

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There would be another two practices the next day. And another the day after, and the day after. On and on for a month or so. On and on for 13 training camps.

There would be heavy lifting too, mostly powerlifting movements like squats, deadlifts, power cleans and bench presses. 

It’s what had to be done to be ready to block the likes of Reggie White, Charles Mann and Howie Long. It’s what had to be done to survive.

Surviving is something Van Horne did exceptionally well. Horne, as he was known to teammates, was an underappreciated, consistent performer and an enforcer on a dominant team. 

He played in — or survived — 186 games at right tackle. That’s tied for fifth most in Bears history behind Patrick Mannelly, Olin Kreutz, Steve McMichael and Walter Payton. 

The 11th pick of the 1981 draft, Van Horne rode the wave of the 1985 Bears and became a celebrity who befriended Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes and Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens. He married and divorced Eleanor Mondale, daughter of former presidential candidate Walter Mondale. He was a man around town, whether he was partying at Buddy Guy’s Legends or appearing at a fundraiser for his favorite charity, the Les Turner ALS Foundation.

By 1993, he still could play, but his neck was destroyed. If you watched the Bears in those days, you might remember seeing Van Horne after a play with one arm hanging limp at his side. He estimates he had more than 100 neck stingers in his career. He went to see Dr. Michael Schafer, one of the most respected orthopedic surgeons in the country, for an injection in his neck. He asked Shafer if he thought he could play for another year or two. 

Shafer said, “Partner, it’s time for you to find something else.”

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Van Horne was relieved. “It was good to hear that, really,” he says now.

It wasn’t as good to hear almost everything else Shafer told him, including that Van Horne had the worst spinal stenosis Schafer had seen in 40 years of practice. But it wasn’t surprising, either.

“Being 6-7 wasn’t an advantage,” he says. “A lot of guys are that tall now. In college I was able to extend my frame because guys were a half-yard off the ball. In the pros, the guys are right in front of you. It didn’t help my neck and back, being more compact, as opposed to using my whole frame.”

When Van Horne would think about his post-NFL days, he thought about doing a little radio work, about biking and taking long walks. He thought he would travel, go to concerts and visit museums. It wouldn’t quite work out that way.

Van Horne’s spine was his biggest issue. But it was far from his only one. His injuries began when he was playing at Southern Cal, and continued through retirement.

He fractured his second metatarsal bone and had fusion surgery. He fractured the sockets in both of this shoulders. He tore both of his labrums. He had six shoulder surgeries and knee surgery. He tore his pec muscle. He tore his biceps tendon. He broke a bone in his lower right leg in a game in San Francisco, but didn’t find out it was broken for two years after the injury. He took the week off practice but played the next Sunday. He partially tore both Achilles tendons. When he taped his ankles, he had to tape around the lumps because there was so much pain. He had surgery on both legs between seasons.

For all of this destruction, there would be repercussions.

Shortly after he quit playing, he knew he needed back surgery. He kept putting it off because of other health issues. One day he was caught in a storm and tried to run to his car. But he couldn’t run. 

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“Literally, I couldn’t run,” he says. “That’s when I knew I had to get it taken care of.”

A four level fusion that took 13 hours was forthcoming. For a time his calves and feet were swollen so badly that he had to see a therapist repeatedly to have his ankles, feet and toes wrapped.

The nerves in his legs never fully recovered, which made walking difficult, and he struggled with balance. He couldn’t walk more than 200 steps in a day.

Van Horne developed heart problems. First came atrial fibrillation, and then ventricular tachycardia. There would be trips to the emergency room, and paddles, drugs and two surgical procedures through his groin to scar his heart tissue.

Dizzy spells haunted him to the point where he’d sometimes have to pull over when driving. He would get flushed. He suffered from severe headaches.

Van Horne was in constant pain. He couldn’t sleep for more than two hours at a time before some screaming body part jolted him awake. The most sleep he could get in a night was four hours. 

His physical condition affected his mental and emotional state. Depression and weight gain were part of the package. Van Horne, who played at 285 pounds, got up to 350.

For a few years, he was lost in himself. “I was in a dark place,” he says. “There wasn’t a lot of hope.”

His cardiologist Micah Eimer suggested Van Horne see a muscle specialist who deals with patients who have had heart transplants, or suffer from multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s and cancer.

When Van Horne met Greg Hachaj on March 3, 2016, he told him, “Greg, I’m slowly dying.”

Hachaj was born in a small fishing town in Poland on the Baltic Sea and played soccer through his childhood. At 16, he signed with Poland’s Junior National Team, and by 1979 he was playing sweeper for Arka Gdynia, a professional club.

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Seven years later, knee troubles ended his soccer career. He came to Chicago in 1987 and was drawn to bodybuilding.  He found it easy to get bigger, bigger and bigger. At his peak he weighed 289 pounds. He was bench pressing 450 pounds and shrugging 700 pounds. He would load the leg press machine with 24 plates, and then have a friend sit on the machine.

He won the Chicago Classic in 1991 and the Mid-Illinois Grand Prix in 1993. He was a finalist in the 1995 North American Bodybuilding Championship. He took second place in the 1993 Championship of Poland, and third place in the 2000 Championship of Poland.

“It looks so awesome from the outside,” he says with an accent. “I had so much friends and attention and almost love from people. I thought more muscle, more happiness, more people admire me.

“Then I find, no, that’s hell. It’s impossible.”

In order to compete at higher levels, Hachaj had to do what everyone else was doing. 

“You build such a huge size of muscle with all the doping,” he says. “So my mental also was mixed with the medication you have to take, growth hormone, insulin. I was hurt mentally and physically. So at one point, I find myself hurt, sore, exhausted all the time. I couldn’t do anything else.”

There were times he was so dehydrated while competing he felt his heart was stopping. His neck, lower back and knee were giving out. And he was falling short against competitors who were, ahem, more sophisticated in their preparation. By 2000, he had to give up bodybuilding. 

“There was devastation for me,” he says. “What else can I do? I didn’t know anything else except building more muscle. That’s your profession. I was famous for being the biggest personal trainer in Chicago. But I couldn’t continue it. I was suffering.”

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Healing himself became Hachaj’s mission. He educated himself, devising a method to train that promoted blood flow, healing and growth without damaging muscles and joints. He got off the juice and lost 100 pounds. He became healthy.

And then he started applying his method to other people who were injured and unwell. For 15 years, he has been healing others with his GH method, which resets the brain as much as the muscle. Hachaj considers the GH method a link between physical therapy and fitness.

He would become the proprietor of GhFitlab, with locations in Glenview and Bucktown. And he would treat kidney transplant and dialysis patients as part of studies at UIC, helping many to reduce pain and return to normal activity.

He would be the ideal man to heal Van Horne. 

Why?  “I think I was also slowly dying,” he says.

Van Horne was skeptical that Hachaj could help him. Hachaj’s training method — working out with little to no resistance and using controlled movements — was out there, Van Horne thought.

“It was a totally different way of lifting to what I was used to,” he says. “I was thinking, ‘This can’t be doing anything.’”

Van Horne was told to hold his arms out to his sides with no weights for a count of six. He could not complete three repetitions.

He was discouraged, but his desperation made him continue in twice-a-week sessions. There was nothing left to lose.

Hachaj prescribed lifestyle changes, too.

Out: sausage and milk for breakfast. In: egg whites, toast, avocado and fruit.

Out: bacon sandwich and chips for lunch. In: oatmeal, berries and nuts.

Then, something funny happened. Something incredible, really.

Progress.

And progress kept happening. 

One day Van Horne saw former Bears teammate Dan Jiggetts at Halas Hall. They had to laugh because neither one of them could walk very well. But it made Van Horne think — maybe Jiggetts could benefit from Hachaj’s methods too.

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Jiggetts gave it a try. Other former players came on board too.

The size of these men initially was problematic. They broke three conventional chairs during workouts. Eventually, Hachaj had a special oversized chair built at a cost of $800. He also purchased exercise machines to accommodate large people.

Van Horne sits in one of them while working his hamstrings. Slowly, he completes one rep. Then another and another until he gets to the prescribed number.

Hachaj: “How many more reps could you have done?”

Van Horne: “Two.”

Hachaj: “What percentage did you feel it in your hamstrings?”

Van Horne: “99.”

Hachaj: “What was the intensity?”

Van Horne: “98 percent.”

After more than two years of working with Hachaj, Van Horne is in a different place physically. That exercise that calls for him to lift his arms out to his sides for six seconds? Now he does four sets of 10.

More significantly, his pain is being managed. Hachaj shared Van Horne’s pain assessments from a recent visit compared to his initial visit. A zero is no pain, a 10 is the most pain.

Neck: 0 from 9
Right shoulder: 0-to-2 from 7
Left shoulder: 0 from 8
Upper pec: 0 from 8
Lower pec: 3 from 9
Lower back: 4 from 9
Right hip: 0 from 4
Left hip: 0 from 8
Right calf: 0 from 4
Left calf: 0 from 3

At 60, Van Horne no longer is imprisoned by his body the way he was. 

“I’m doing things now I couldn’t do before because of the pain,” he says. “I can do things in everyday life — reaching for things, lifting things — that I couldn’t do before.”

He has been motivated to start exercising aerobically too.He purchased a recumbent bicycle, but his feet wouldn’t stay on the pedals because of nerve damage. He searched for a pair of 16 wide bike shoes that could attach to pedals. He found a pair in Italy, and ordered them.

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His skies don’t always seem to be so gray anymore.

“You feel good that you are doing something positive,” he says. “Greg says it’s a world of difference watching me now in terms of my disposition. This has given me some hope. Walking will always be difficult, but I can walk better. I can go forwards now instead of side to side. I’m sleeping better.”

Jiggetts has seen a similar transformation. Two hip replacements had thrown off the alignment of his entire body. He couldn’t feel his legs from his knees to his ankles, and he had to use a cane for two years. Now, after extensive work with Hachaj, he hasn’t used one in eight months.

The story doesn’t end there.

Hachaj wants to keep helping — not only the former players he is seeing, but those he has yet to meet. And he wants to help current players.

“I have no doubt I can help players get back on the field quicker, and also enhance their performance,” says Hachaj, who finds fulfillment in his mission. “I have the chip that current players are missing.”

Jiggetts wants to be able to play with his two grandchildren — and the third who is on the way — for years to come.

Van Horne probably will need a neck surgery at some point. He’s still battling depression, and seeking help for it. He wonders about all the hits to the head. He needs to lose weight. He’s not in the clear yet.

But he has something he hasn’t had in a long time — a future to look forward to. 

“I want to take it one day at a time,” he says. “I’d like to travel, maybe to Africa, South America and Europe. I want to enjoy my family and my friends and lead a happy and healthy life for however many years I have left.”

Healing has helped Van Horne realize there is a world beyond his pain, and opportunities to give back to it.

Van Horne agreed to share his story in the hope that other struggling former players can be helped. There is a reason, he knows, for him to be sitting in this oversized chair holding his arms out to his sides.

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“I think this was meant to be,” he says. “I was at a point where I needed help, and it came to me.  I don’t want to get all spiritual, but it was kind of an answer to a prayer.”

This may be the salvation of Keith Van Horne.

(Top photo courtesy Keith Van Horne)

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