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‘Hardcore grandma’ – ageing fitness buff proves hit in China
SHANGHAI, Sept 24, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Chen Jifang hits the gym for at
least two hours every day and has the physique to prove it. At nearly 70,
she’s being held up as a shining example as China orders its vast population
to get fit and lose the bulge.
The grandmother from Shanghai has become a minor celebrity in recent
months as her newfound and unlikely love for working out made national
headlines.
After becoming a gym bunny in December 2018, Chen lost 14 kilos (30
pounds) in three months and now sports the kind of flat stomach and toned
muscles that people decades younger aspire to.
She has also built up a fan base on social media, clocking up 410,000
followers on TikTok with her impressive exercise routines and encouraging
others to follow her example.
A post on the video-sharing app of the pensioner doing a rapid set of
lung-busting squats and lunges has been viewed more than one million times.
“I will work out as long as I’m still alive,” Chen, who turned 68 this
year, tells AFP at a gym in a Shanghai suburb.
Chinese state media have reported Chen’s story with gusto because it fits
the government’s drive to encourage people of all ages to get fitter.
That message has been amplified this year by the assertion that being fit
is one way to help beat the coronavirus, which emerged in Wuhan in late 2019.
Xinmin Evening News labelled Chen “hardcore grandma” and Xinhua news
agency called her “heavy-lifting granny”. She has also been featured on
television.
For Chen, who worked for a food company before retiring, pumping iron has
come late in life.
She began going to the gym following a chance meeting with a personal
trainer, propelled into action by worries about her deteriorating health and
weight gain.
But she has shed the flab and says that last year she was given a clear
bill of health by doctors, having previously had problems with a fatty liver,
high blood pressure and eye cataracts.
Chen, who has a grandson aged 14, recalled the shocked looks she got the
first time she walked through the gym door.
“They found it very strange, they don’t usually see people at such an old
age who care about their health so much,” she says.
– Dancing aunties –
Under the watchful eye of a personal trainer, and barely pausing for
breath, Chen ploughs through a series of exercises using weight machines,
free weights and other dynamic movements designed to burn fat and gain
muscle.
Despite her active lifestyle, Chen has no sporting background and says she
barely got out of bed when her daughter was very young because her body was
so weak from giving birth.
“If your muscles are strong and powerful it will protect your bones if you
fall, because the elderly are most afraid of falling,” she said.
“In fact, I also fell once and fell terribly, hurting my forehead, hips,
knees and toes.
“They saw an old lady with white hair lying on the ground and passersby
started calling an ambulance.
“I said ‘don’t’, and I got up. I said that I had been exercising, so I’m
fine.”
On a typical warm autumn evening, so-called ‘dancing aunties’ pack out
Shanghai’s parks and public spaces. For many women of middle age and upwards,
square dancing is the only form of exercise they get.
“No matter how hard you square-dance, you can’t reach my current
condition,” said Chen, flexing her biceps for the camera.
She added: “At our age it is not how much money you have, who you are, or
how good your children are.
“You just want a medical record as short as possible.”
BSS/AFP/RY/10:08hrs