Who is an elderly fitness model?

To put it bluntly, they are professional or semi-professional performers who are generally over 50 years old and whose core content is to build a healthy body through fitness. Most of them were fitness enthusiasts for many years before entering the industry. They are not just looking for young old people to make up the numbers.

In the past two years, I ran events with friends from the City Bodybuilding Association, and I met several local elderly fitness models. The average age in the team is 61, the youngest is 52 and has just retired, and the oldest is 74 this year. The old man’s surname is Wang. He has been practicing strength training for 18 years and can press 80 kilograms. When he is on the catwalk, he wears a custom-made dark pattern suit. His back is straighter than that of a twenty-year-old boy. The little girl in the audience screams harder than watching a boy band.

In the past two years, elderly fitness models have become more and more popular, and controversy has never ceased.

Many people regard them as examples of "anti-age anxiety" and feel that they no longer have to be kidnapped by the saying "you have to accept aging when you are old". You can still pursue a good-looking figure when you are old, and there is nothing shameful if you are willing to show off on stage. There was a 68-year-old aunt who went viral when she performed a fitness cheongsam show. In the video, she has a straight back, a body fat rate of around 20% all year round, no excess fat on her legs, and even neck wrinkles are much lighter than her peers. Many girls in their twenties and thirties left messages in the comment section, saying, "I have to live like this when I get old."

But there are also many voices that don’t buy it. The most common saying is that these people are "survivor biased". They either have high retirement salaries and don't have to worry about life, or they have no children or grandchildren at home, so they have time to go to the gym for two or three hours a day, hire personal trainers, buy supplements, and sign up for body-shape classes. The expenses are thousands of dollars a month. Retired people from ordinary companies simply cannot afford it. Too much publicity only adds anxiety to ordinary people, as if they have lived in vain without building muscles or performing in shows. There are also more harsh comments, saying that showing one's arms and legs at one's age is not in line with the calm look that an elderly person should have.

I asked the 74-year-old Mr. Wang in the team before what he thought of these scoldings. He laughed and said that when he was young, he loved to train muscles. At that time, others said that he was "training stupidly instead of doing his job." Now that he is retired, he is more comfortable practicing. He just walks on the catwalk to have fun, and others can say whatever they like. He also brought several old neighbors to the gym to practice together. Even if they don't do catwalks, after practicing, his shoulders no longer hurt and his waist is no longer sore. He can climb the fifth floor without breathing. It's better than anything else.

In fact, in the final analysis, elderly fitness models are just a group of old people who have chosen this lifestyle. You can regard them as role models if you feel they are too far away from you to watch the excitement. Anyway, there is no unified standard answer for how to live your life when you get old.