I see people 30 years younger than me and they’ve given up,” Jean Stewart, 96, says. It’s not an attitude she relates to. “I like to do things for myself.”
Stewart was very active in her youth: she played hockey and softball at school and worked for the Girl Scouts for years. As she got older, however, everyday tasks became harder.
“I got to the point where I didn’t have the strength to prune my roses,” she says.
Becoming frailer was frustrating. Worse, she was tired of being treated as incapable by those around her. Aged 81, she read about a local CrossFit gym and went along to ask for help – it was the start of what would become 15 years of on-and-off training with its owner, Cheryl Cohen. Back then, Stewart was her only client older than 60. Today, she specialises in classes for older adults, helping them stay independent.
Stewart was nervous and excited during her first session. Training focused on movements that would support her day to-day life, including getting up and down from the ground, and walking while carrying 4kg kettlebells. Each session, the weights increased gradually.
Soon, she was doing full-body press‑ups, keeping pace with women 10 years younger. She could hold a plank long enough for another member of the senior group to tell a two-minute story. By 83, she could deadlift 70kg. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “I thought it was light.”
Stewart, 96 at the Desert Fitness Collective in Palm Springs. Photograph: Nolwen Cifuentes/The Guardian
As she reached 90, her progress was interrupted by a bout of MRSA and “a serious car accident – I was almost demolished”. Stewart lost feeling in her feet and lower legs, and spent two months in rehabilitation. Soon after, she fell again while walking her dog: “Her leash got twisted in my legs.” At 91, she required surgery for a broken hip. “I continued with exercise and got the strength back,” Stewart says. What kept her going? “I’m stubborn.”
These days, she can’t deadlift due to spinal stenosis, but still trains twice a week. Her sessions include elevated push-ups, kettlebell squats and pushing a weight-loaded sledge. “The older I get, the more I tell myself I’ve got to keep going,” Stewart says. Cohen recalls a story of her carrying a heavy pail of cat litter at the store. “They say, ‘Ma’am, would you like help with this?’ And she goes, ‘No!’ and walks away.”
Stewart can now get down to prune her plants, rise easily from a chair, and is strong enough to help herself up if she falls. “Without strength training I wouldn’t be alive,” she says. She’s evangelical about exercise to friends who think they’re too old to start. To younger people who say they are too busy, her advice is simple: “Make time. Do what you need to do to live longer.”
Jean Stewart is a member of Desert Fitness Collective.
