Jim Owen, 85, is living, breathing, push-up repping proof that it’s never too late to get fit.
Today he’s a 10-time gold medal winner at the San Diego Senior Games—an event that included a remarkable two-and-a-half minute dead hang.
He’s also the filmmaker behind a three-part documentary series, “Virtuous Circle: A Geezer’s Guide to Successful Aging”, now streaming on PBS.
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But just 15 years earlier, a three-decade-long career on Wall Street and subsequent book tour had left his body broken.
“When I turned 70 I was in god-awful shape,” he tells Fit&Well.
“All the travel got to me—it damn near killed me.
“Excruciating lower-back pain—I’m talking crawling-on-the-bathroom-floor kind of pain. My right rotator cuff was frozen. I had no energy at all. I said, ‘I’ve got to do something’.”
In that moment, Owen resolved to transform his life, spending the next decade reintroducing movement into his daily routine, building a foundation of strength and, in his own words, “fighting off old age”.
Here, the octogenarian breaks down the small steps he made to start reclaiming his health and fitness—steps he hopes could help anyone at a similar crossroads.
How to reclaim your health and fitness at 70
Before telling his story, Owen is keen to stress that he’s “a very, very ordinary guy”.
“Yes, I played football in high school but I was never a star athlete. I found my inner athlete when I was about 75,” he explains from his home in California.
“Now I’m a competitive athlete. It’s been a fun journey and, believe it or not, the best is yet to come. That’s my attitude.”
Rather than aiming to live longer, he’s thinking in terms of living better.
“I’m not trying to live to 100. I just want to make every day count. It’s been a good ride so far and I want to encourage other people,” he says.
“Anybody can do this.”
1. Get specific
Having resolved to turn his life around, the first thing Owen did was grab a pen and paper.
“I strongly think that the first step is setting very, very specific goals,” says Owen.
Rather than simply committing to exercise more, as doctors would tell him to, the retiree identified three specific goals:
- Reduce or eliminate his excruciating back pain
- Boost his energy
- Lose some serious weight
“I was about 35lbs overweight,” he remembers.
“I was a certified couch potato. My doctor said I need to exercise and my wife said I need to get off the couch, but that’s not motivation.”
Owen wrote those goals down as a daily, tangible reminder.
2. Start small
Next, he challenged himself to move in some way every day for a month.
“I believe in starting small,” he explains.
“Small steps over time add up to big strides. To anyone just starting out at 65 or 70, don’t be overly ambitious. Start small.”
For Owen, that meant walking.
“I did a 30-day test. I said I’m going to walk every day for 30 days and see what happens. On day one, after four blocks I was puffing and huffing.
“Then every day I walked a little bit farther. By the end of 30 days I only walked probably a mile, but everyone seemed to notice, telling me I looked like I had more energy.”
With that positive reinforcement, Owen kept walking.
“All I did was walk. I walked for probably three months.”
3. Build your foundation
(Image credit: Courtesy: Jim Owen)
After 90 days, daily movement was now part of Owen’s routine, but walking alone wasn’t going to cut it.
“It does nothing for your back,” he continues. “It strengthens your lungs and all, but I decided I needed to build a foundation of strength.”
Owen joined a gym, insisting on wearing a figure-hugging compression T-shirt rather than hiding under a baggy top.
“People must have been looking at me thinking this guy has no pride,” he jokes. “But that has been a motivating factor. I’ve worn a compression T-shirt ever since.”
On day one, Owen says he couldn’t muster one push-up.
“That’s how weak I was. It took about two to three weeks to do a real push-up. But I kept at it. At the end of three or four weeks I was doing two or three.”
After five years, now 75, he was repping out sets of 50 push-ups.
“What it shows you is, don’t be too ambitious at the beginning. Take the long view.”
4. Track your progress
Taking up strength training was a “life changer”, but Owen needed a plan to see results.
“I have a schedule,” he explains, “and I believe that everybody needs a schedule, like a commitment, and I write this down. I can tell you how many days I exercised four years ago.”
Now, Owen works out six days a week for one hour at a time.
“Three days of strength training, three days of cardio, which I do by walking up hills at a pretty good clip, and then I stretch three times a week.
“People often say they don’t have the time to commit to an hour a day. I tell them it’s just 4% of your day. I don’t care how busy you are.”
To fit sessions in, Owen suggests breaking those 60 minutes into bite-sized chunks, such as stretching in the morning and walking after lunch.
But, he adds, it’s important to work on your weaknesses, not just your strengths. For Owen, strengthening his core and working on his balance are “critical”.
5. Be patient
Lastly, Owen remembers to be patient.
“No matter what you do, there will be setbacks, plateaus, there will be injuries,” he says.
“I broke my wrist a few years ago. I broke my hip about a year ago. These are all setbacks, but you have to keep at it and say, this is life.
“The progress is not a straight line. People think this guy must have found the secret. There is no secret. Show up, do the work, try to have fun with it and don’t be too hard on yourself.”
On low-energy days, Owen will cut back, do fewer reps and a lower weight.
“And guess what, I feel so much better. I’ve never worked out and not felt better afterwards,” he says. “That’s the motivation to keep coming back.”
After five years of coming back for more, Owen says he has built a foundation of strength. “Once you have that foundation, it becomes easier. It becomes fun.”
6. Keep moving
Owen admits that you don’t have to work out like he does.
“You don’t even have to lift weights,” he says. You certainly don’t have to enter competitions like the Senior Games, which he’s won all four times that he’s entered, incidentally.
“The key is you just got to keep moving.”
He felt so strongly about this last point that in 2017, Owen wrote a book about it, called Just Move!
“You don’t have to have a gym or a trainer. But you have to move,” he says.
“If I had known what I know now [earlier in my career], I would not have let one day go by without doing some kind of physical activity.
“Not necessarily the gym. Maybe just walking. Walking up the steps rather than taking the elevator. Walking to my car. Parking it a mile away. Something to get you moving.
“That’s what I would have done differently. I would have started moving when I was 50.
“My message is very simple,” he concludes. “If I can do it—and I’m nobody special, believe me—anybody can do it. The sooner you start, the easier it is. But it’s never too late.”