Carol Klenfner had played ping pong on and off since growing up and into adulthood, but it wasn’t until she was 69 that she picked up the paddle to compete.
Within just a few months of playing consistently, she began to notice a difference.
“I remember when I started playing ping pong,” she told Business Insider’s Sarah Andersen in April, “I noticed that my reflexes were faster than they had been.”
Now, after more than a decade of playing and competing at the national level and earning more than 50 medals, she attributes the sport to keeping her mind sharp and engaged as she enters her 80s.
Andersen followed Klenfner as she trained for the 2025 National Senior Games in Des Moines this summer:
Ping pong’s speed demands full attention — the spin of the ball, the bounce off the paddle, and the angle of each return. That focus, repeated hundreds of times a day, has helped tune both Klenfner’s body and mind, she said.
“If I’m in the bathroom and something falls off the medicine chest, my hand is there catching it before it even registers in my head,” Klenfner said.
Klenfner’s experience aligns with what researchers have found on the effect of regular physical activity and strength training on the aging human brain.
Building balance, coordination, and fine motor control can strengthen neural connections, reducing the risk of cognitive decline and frailty in older adults.
What’s more, picking up ping pong later in life gave Klenfner a renewed sense of adventure.
“The single most important thing that I’ve learned, and the advice that I would give to somebody who wants to pick up something new later in life, is that it’s never too late to learn,” she said. “It’s never too late to start something new.”
Picking up a new sport later in life
Before tackling table tennis, Klenfner had spent most of her life avoiding sports. She was injured in a car crash in college that dislocated her hip. After that, running, playing tennis, and general athletics were off the table.
“It changed the trajectory of my life till now,” she said of the event. “I kind of stopped playing sports at that point.”
Then, in her late 60s, she saw the documentary “Ping Pong” on PBS, which follows a group of seniors, ages 80 to 100, going to the World Masters Championship.
“I watched that documentary and I said, ‘Well, I can’t play tennis anymore because of my back and my sciatica, but I think I could play ping pong,'” she said.
Now, at 80, she plays table tennis and trains several times a week.
She’s competed in many events, including the Empire State Senior Games and the National Senior Games. She won gold for women’s singles at the national games in Pittsburgh in 2023 and took fifth at the 2025 games in Iowa, which disappointed her but didn’t deter her from continuing.
“Winning’s better, but I love to play and playing is the goal,” she said.
How she stays in shape at the competitive level in her 80s
Klenfner says she works out every day, morning and night. Space is limited in her small studio Manhattan apartment, but she gets creative.
She completes about 60 squats, including one-legged squats, each morning while her oatmeal warms.
Then, she’ll do some stretches specifically for her back and sciatica, followed by side planks to strengthen her oblique muscles, which are key for the side-to-side motion in ping pong, she says.
After that, she’ll typically head to either PingPod to practice with their coaches or her private Pilates trainer, whom she sees twice a week.
In the evenings, she completes sets of resistance exercises with a weight band that she attaches to the only door in her place: the bathroom door.
Klenfner says there are three main reasons she’s so committed to exercising daily: staying strong for her tournaments, staying strong for her life, and helping her mental health. “I am happy when I’m moving,” she said.
“I’m currently living the best chapter of my life in a lot of ways. I am doing what I want to do when I want to do it.”
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