Imagine being 92 years old and driving yourself to the gym four times a week. You can do deep squats and climb stairs without any trouble. Edna Giordano has five children, 21 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. This is her life.
She said on Good Morning America last year that she doesn’t think about being 91. She feels the same way now as she did when she was fifty. Because she had to keep up with so many kids, she has always lived a busy life. She never really thought about it because that’s just how she lives. She feels better when she keeps moving around.
Giordano didn’t start going to the gym until she was 65, when she had to quit her job at the hospital because she was too old. This makes her story even more amazing. She still goes to the gym every other day, even though it’s been 27 years. Dalyce Radtke, her daughter, posts videos of their training sessions on Instagram and TikTok all the time.
Giordano told Radtke on TikTok that her body tells her it’s unhappy when she sits down. She spends a lot of time walking her dog, painting, or working in the garden. She feels better after watching TV for just 10 minutes and then getting up to do something around the house. She feels better when she goes to the gym every morning. She doesn’t want to go, but she feels better when she does. When she gets home, her mind is more active, and the day goes on from there. She sleeps well and has no issues. For someone her age, her posture is very good. She likes to hang from a bar because it makes her body look longer. She believes that being active is what keeps her from feeling pain.
She says she doesn’t feel any pain. She has knee pain when she does some things, but it’s not bad enough to stop her from working out. She has arthritis in her thumbs that makes it harder for her to open cans and bottles, but she can still be active.
She also never took any hormone replacement drugs. Every time you go online these days, you can find products and supplements that promise to help you age better. These choices weren’t available back then. Exercise was the only thing that kept her healthy. She just got her passport renewed for ten more years because she wants to stay here. You could live to be 110 years old. She gets sad when people think they have an expiration date. She still feels the same way she did 30 years ago.
Giordano’s Daily Fitness Routines That Make Him Feel Decades Younger
Giordona’s main goal is to get stronger, so she goes to the gym four times a week for an hour. One day, she does exercises for her upper body, and the next day, she does exercises for her lower body. Radtke has posted a lot of videos of her mom doing squats, lunges, shoulder presses, bicep curls, and lateral raises. She does leg raises on a bench, side plank dips, bird dog exercises, and twists in one video.
Radtke said that her 91-year-old mother was working out her abs when she posted the video. Her mother lives in Canada, so she said they live in different cities and countries. She said that when they are together, she likes to give her new things to do. Radtke said that her mother’s physical abilities are amazing because she can do a lot of things with ease, like reverse crunches, hip lifts, and side planks. She said that this shows that age is just a number and asked who would expect a 91-year-old to be so strong and flexible.
In 2023, her daughter posted another video of her working out on TikTok. She said that her 91-year-old mother took her to the gym and showed her a short version of the hour-long workout she does three times a week.
The video starts with Giordano doing cardio on a cross-trainer and a treadmill. After that, he does strength training with an overhead press machine, an assisted pull-up machine, and dumbbell tricep extensions. She ends with some stretching, like the child’s pose and the frog stretch.
Research shows that people lose muscle mass more quickly after they turn seventy. The NHS says that one in three adults over 65 falls at least once a year. This could make them more likely to fall and hurt themselves.
Strength training that is smart and safe for muscles after age 60
Research shows that people lose muscle mass more quickly when they are in their seventies. The NHS says that about one in three adults over 60 falls at least once a year. This could make them more likely to fall and hurt themselves.
But there is now a lot of evidence that strength training can help with these issues. Your neural motor units can handle strength training better as you get older. These cells in your brain and spinal cord send signals from your brain to your muscles. As they get better at it, they will be able to handle submaximal loads for longer periods of time. These loads are heavy, but you don’t have to lift them as hard as you can.
According to Dr. Sims, a female physiologist, you should do hypertrophy training in groups of 10 to 12 reps. She says that if you’ve been working out right, you’ve gotten a lot stronger in your 50s, so now is the time to add more lean muscle. Radtke says that Giordano lifts light weights when it comes to how much weight you should lift. Choose something that feels good but isn’t too easy.
Why Walking Became His Best Way to Live Longer
Walking is the second most important thing in Giordano’s workout plan. She walks as much as she can every day, and before every strength training workout at the gym, she walks on the treadmill to keep her heart healthy. Her daughter also put up a video of Giordano walking quickly in their neighborhood park, then doing leg swings, deep squats, shuttle runs, and a short jog. She did a power walk before her strength training session, which included step-ups, push-ups, mountain climbers, tricep dips, and hanging ab crunches.
Radtke wrote in the caption that her mom’s daily routine is proof of the exercises we should all do to stay healthy and independent.
There are many good things about walking for older people. Studies show that it lowers the risk or severity of many health problems, such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes mellitus, cognitive impairment, and dementia. It also makes you live longer, sleep better, and feel better mentally.
Gentle movements that keep joints young, flexible, and able to move
Giordano’s third important thing to do is to stretch to make his range of motion and flexibility better. These are two different things. Mobility means that your body can move in all the usual ways. Your muscles can stretch if you are flexible. Her daughter posted a video of Giordano’s full mobility routine. It has a hamstring stretch and a figure four glute stretch that you do while lying down. She also does a modified pigeon stretch and a stretch for her lower back while lying down. The routine includes bridge walks, roll-ups, a butterfly groin stretch, and sit-to-stands.
She always begins her strength training sessions with exercises that help her move more freely. These exercises prepare her muscles for what she’s about to do. Before she works out her lower body, for example, she does leg swings and deep squats. You can see this in the video of her exercising in the park. She does static stretches that work the same muscles after she works out. Research shows that static stretches are better for cooling down than warming up. They help muscles heal by making them less sore and stiff. Other studies have found that doing static stretches after a workout can help your nervous system relax. It activates the parasympathetic response, which makes you feel more relaxed after working out. In the caption, Radtke says that her mother didn’t move around quickly when she was a child. If you start with small steps and stick with them, you can do a lot. You just do a little bit more every day. There aren’t any special tricks to it. You don’t need a fancy gym or special equipment.
How NEAT (non-exercise activity) helps him stay energized
Radtke said on Good Morning America that Giordano also needs to do NEAT exercises. NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. It’s the movement you do every day without even thinking about it. She said that Giordano always takes the stairs and stays busy all day by finding ways to keep moving. For instance, Giordano spends a few hours each week taking care of the gardens at her apartment building.
Radke says that her message is clear: you don’t need to pay for a gym membership to stay fit. You don’t have to work out hard all the time. Just keep going and pay attention to the basics.
The time you spend working out at the gym on purpose every day is only about 10% of the total amount of energy you use each day (TDEE). NEAT can also make up to 50% of it. Researchers have found that having higher NEAT levels is linked to a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and other heart diseases. Because it helps keep your blood pressure at a healthy level, which is more important as you get older because your arteries naturally get stiffer over time.
Giordano says that eating a clean, balanced diet is what keeps him healthy for life.
Giordano says that she makes most of her own meals, which are mostly chicken, vegetables, salads, and other similar foods. She takes iron, a multivitamin, and AG1 every day as well. She knows she needs protein, so she tries to eat fish as her main source of it.
She doesn’t like food very much and doesn’t eat much, but she knows that food is good for her. She has only had Covid a few times, and it wasn’t too hard for her to get over it. But she does have some guilty pleasures, like Cinnabon’s chocolate and ice cream. But she eats healthy foods to make up for it.
