Watching Charlotte Lim at work in the gym, it’s easy to forget that she’s 80.
She does a pull-up, chin clearing the bar with ease. She drops to the ground and powers through a set of feet-elevated push-ups. Then, she grabs a dumbbell off the rack, holds it close to her chest, and drops into squat after squat.
Lim only started strength training at 72.
Before that, exercise meant little more than walking on a treadmill after she retired from a consulting and HR role. “For 15 years I coasted along, but I was looking to be stronger,” Lim told Business Insider.
It wasn’t until her daughter, Yan, 43, asked her to join the gym that she co-owns with her brother in Singapore that Lim finally started seeing results.
“Within a year, I could do an unassisted sit-up,” Lim said. “Within four years, I could do a chin-up.”
For Yan, it was important that her mother started working out with purpose. More than a decade ago, Yan’s father died unexpectedly at 69 from an aortic dissection. Since then, she’s made it a priority to help her mother stay healthy.
“It really was a wake-up call,” Yan, a fitness trainer, told Business Insider. “The gym is to keep my mom not just alive, but healthy with no chronic illnesses.”
Her brother, Tiat Lim, also a fitness trainer, told Business Insider he was fully on board with the idea of their mother joining from the start.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I expect her to be doing pullups, let alone weighted ones,” he said.
Starting from scratch
Research suggests people can continue building muscle and strength well into older age.
A 2023 study found that adults over 85 benefited from strength training as much as those aged 65 to 75.
“It is never too late to start strength training,” Dr. Chia Jia Qian, a geriatrician at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore, told Business Insider.
Chia said many older adults mistakenly think strength training is only for younger people or aspiring bodybuilders.
“Muscle mass and strength decline in tandem as we age, and those with poor muscle health are at higher risk of falls, fractures, decline in physical and cognitive function, subsequent disability, and poor quality of life,” she said.
However, she recommends beginners start with exercises that match their fitness level before gradually increasing the intensity.
“In fact, maintaining regular activity often helps reduce chronic joint pains and will improve function over time,” she said.
Lim’s first few workouts at the gym were tough. She still remembers one of her earliest sessions, when 100 jumping jacks left her feeling like she had “almost died,” the octogenarian joked.
Yan still remembers her mother’s second day at the gym, when the workout called for 210 reps of prison burpees.
“I remember halfway, about 45 minutes, she looked at me and said, ‘I’m never giving up,'” Yan said, recalling her mother’s words. “That’s my mom’s principle.”
Today, Lim is still the oldest member at the family’s gym, where most clients are in their 40s to 60s.
After leaving its commercial space two years ago, the gym now operates out of the living room of the family’s three-bedroom condo, where they all live together.
Membership costs 259 Singapore dollars a month, or about $200, for unlimited classes. A virtual program is priced at S$50 a month.
Lim attends three workout classes a week, with each session targeting a different muscle group, plus a full-body workout on Saturdays. On days she’s not at the gym, she runs and does bodyweight exercises.
The gym keeps a running leaderboard tracking every member’s performance based on metrics such as workout times and weight lifted.
More often than not, Lim’s name is one of the first the younger members look for.
“They see it and say, ‘What’s Aunty C carrying today? I must do the same,'” Lim said with a laugh.
Beyond the workouts
Healthy aging has become something of a family pursuit. Beyond exercising regularly, Lim and her two children undergo routine health screenings and monitor a range of biomarkers.
The test results are a way to check whether the family’s habits are paying off.
“My mom has a clean bill of health,” Yan said. “No issues with cholesterol, no high blood pressure.” Lim also doesn’t have osteoporosis or sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass, which are common among older women, she added.
Their approach to healthy aging also includes paying attention to nutrition, sleep, and social connection.
That means eating mostly home-cooked meals, sticking to an early bedtime of 9.30 p.m., and having strong social relations, Lim said.
The family even has an acronym for the way they eat: No SOAP, which stands for sugar, oil, additives, and processed foods.
“Out of 21 meals in a week — assuming we have breakfast, lunch, dinner, seven days a week — we eat 19 clean and have two cheat meals where we eat whatever we want,” Yan said.
As for social connection, the gym has become something of a community for Lim.
“I love how they embrace my mom. She’s just one of their friends,” Yan said.
Lim is also active on Instagram, where she shares her workouts and home-cooked meals while keeping up with the latest internet slang.
“The first time somebody called me a badass, I was so upset,” Lim said with a laugh. “I thought, ‘How rude.’ So I Googled it, and it turned out to be a compliment.”
“Remember the time someone called you the GOAT?” Yan interjected, referring to the acronym for “Greatest Of All Time.”
Lim laughed again. “I didn’t know what that meant either.”
The next challenge
In the end, Lim says staying healthy is about preserving the independence she’s watched some of her peers lose.
Over the years, she’s seen friends undergo knee replacements, receive pacemakers, or begin relying on wheelchairs.
But the confidence she’s gained from the gym has led Lim to an unexpected challenge: competitive running. She’s now training for the World Masters Athletics Championships in South Korea later this month.
Yan said the gym has simply become another way for her mother to live out the values she’s held onto throughout her life.
“Being teachable is really important,” Yan said.
Eight years after walking into her daughter’s gym for the first time, Lim is still showing up, still learning, and still training for whatever comes next.
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