Imagine being 92 years old and driving yourself to the gym four times a week while doing deep squats & climbing stairs without any trouble. This is the reality for Edna Giordano who is a mother of five children and has 21 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
She told Good Morning America last year that she does not think about being 91 years old. She feels the same way she felt at fifty. She has always lived a busy lifestyle because having many children meant she had to stay active. She never really thought about it because that is just how she lives. Her body feels better when she keeps moving.
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What makes her story even more impressive is that Giordano only started going to the gym when she was 65 after being forced to retire from her hospital job because of her age. Now 27 years later she still goes to the gym every other day. Her daughter Dalyce Radtke regularly posts videos from their training sessions on Instagram and TikTok.
During a question & answer session with Radtke on TikTok Giordano explained that her body tells her it is unhappy when she just sits down. She spends much of her time painting or working in the garden or walking her dog. If she sits down to watch television for even 10 minutes she jumps up to do something around the house and feels better afterward.
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Going to the gym regularly in the morning helps her mentally. She obviously does not want to go but after she finishes she feels much better. When she comes home her mind is more active and her day continues from there. She sleeps very well & has no problems. Her posture is really good for her age. She loves hanging from a bar because it stretches her body out. She believes staying active is why she does not struggle with aches and pains.
She says she is not in pain anywhere. Her knees hurt when she does certain things but not enough to stop her from exercising. She has arthritis in her thumbs that makes opening bottles and cans harder but nothing prevents her from being active.
She never took hormone replacement therapy either. These days every time you go online you see supplements & products to help you age better but those opportunities did not exist back then. Exercise is the one thing that helped her stay healthy. She just renewed her passport for another ten years because she plans on being here. You could live to 110 years old. It makes her sad when people feel they have an expiration date. She feels the same as she did 30 years ago.
The Daily Fitness Habits That Keep Giordano Feeling Decades Younger
Giordona focuses mainly on strength training with four one-hour gym sessions each week. She uses workout splits to work different body parts by doing upper-body exercises one day and lower-body the next. Radtke has posted multiple videos showing her mother performing squats & lunges along with shoulder presses and bicep curls & lateral raises. One video shows her doing an ab workout that includes leg raises on a bench and side plank dips and bird dog exercises and twists.
When Radtke posted the video she wrote that her inspiring 91-year-old mother was doing an ab workout. She explained that they live in different cities and different countries since her mother lives in Canada. She said that whenever they are together she likes to challenge her with new exercises. Radtke noted that her mother’s physical abilities are astonishing because she handles everything from reverse crunches to hip lifts and side planks with relative ease. She added that this proves age is just a number & asked who would expect a 91-year-old to have such flexibility and strength.
In 2023 her daughter posted another video of her strength training routine on TikTok. She wrote that her 91-year-old mother took her to the gym and showed a glimpse of the hour-long routine she does three times weekly.
The video shows Giordano starting with cardio on a cross-trainer & treadmill before moving to strength training with an overhead press machine and the assisted pull-up machine and dumbbell tricep extensions. She ends with stretching that includes a frog stretch and child’s pose.
Research indicates that muscle mass loss related to aging speeds up when people reach their seventies. The risk of falling and getting injured may also increase since about one in three adults over 65 fall at least once yearly according to the NHS.
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Research indicates that muscle mass loss related to aging speeds up when people reach their seventies. The risk of falling and getting injured may also increase since about one in three adults over 60 fall at least once yearly according to the NHS.
However strong evidence now shows that strength training can counter these effects. The older you are the more adaptable your neural motor units become to strength training stimulus. These cells in your brain and spinal cord send commands from your brain to your muscles. As they become more efficient you will be better able to handle submaximal loads for longer periods. These loads are heavy but do not require maximum effort.
Dr Sims who is a female physiologist recommends hypertrophy training with sets of 10 to 12 repetitions. She explains that if you have been training properly you will have built significant strength in your fifties so now is the time to increase lean muscle mass. Regarding the weight you should lift Radtke says Giordano uses light weights. You should choose something that feels comfortable but not easy.
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Walking is the second focus of Giordano’s workout routine. She walks as much as possible in daily life and warms up for every strength training workout at the gym with a treadmill walk to maintain her cardiovascular fitness. Her daughter also shared a clip of Giordano completing a power walk in their local park and then performing leg swings and deep squats along with shuttle runs & a short jog before a strength training session of step-ups and push-ups plus mountain climbers and tricep dips and hanging ab crunches.
Radtke wrote in the caption that her mum’s routine is a testament to the exercises we should all embrace for a life of independence and vitality.
There are endless benefits to walking for ageing because studies show it decreases the risk or severity of various health outcomes such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases along with type 2 diabetes mellitus & cognitive impairment and dementia while also improving mental well-being and sleep and longevity.
Gentle Mobility and Flexibility Moves That Keep Joints Youthful
The third important part of Giordano’s routine is stretching for mobility and flexibility. These are two different things. Mobility means your body can move through its complete range of motion. Flexibility means your muscles can stretch. Her daughter posted a video showing Giordano’s complete mobility routine. It includes a supine hamstring stretch and figure four glute stretch. She also does a modified pigeon stretch and supine lower back stretch. The routine has bridge walks and roll-ups plus a butterfly groin stretch and sit-to-stands.
She begins every strength training workout with dynamic mobility exercises. These exercises prepare the muscles she is about to use. For example she does leg swings and deep squats before working her lower body. You can see this in the video of her park workout. After exercising she does static stretches that target the same muscles. Research shows that static stretches work better during cooldown than warmup. They help muscle recovery by reducing stiffness and decreasing soreness. Other studies show that static stretching after a workout calms your nervous system. It activates the parasympathetic response which makes you feel more relaxed after training.
In the caption Radtke explains that her mother’s youthful mobility did not happen quickly. It shows what consistency can achieve when you start with small steps. You just do a little more each day. There are no special tricks involved. You don’t need a fancy gym or special equipment.
How Everyday Movement (NEAT) Keeps His Energy Levels High
Speaking on Good Morning America Radtke explained that NEAT exercise is also important for Giordano. NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis & refers to the movement you do every day without really thinking about it. She mentioned that Giordano always takes the stairs and stays active throughout the day while looking for ways to keep moving. For instance, Giordano takes care of the gardening at her apartment building & spends several hours on this task each week.
Radke explains that her message is simple: you don’t need a gym membership to stay fit. You don’t have to do intense workouts either. Just focus on the basics & keep moving.
The time you spend working out intentionally each day at the gym only accounts for about 10% of your TDEE or total daily energy expenditure. Meanwhile NEAT can make up as much as 50% of it. Research has shown that higher NEAT levels are connected to a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke. This happens because it helps keep blood pressure at healthy levels, which becomes more important as you age since your arteries naturally become stiffer over time.
The Clean, Balanced Diet Giordano Credits for Lifelong Vitality
On the diet front Giordano says she does most of her own cooking with chicken and vegetables & salads and similar foods. She also takes supplements including iron and a multivitamin and AG1 every morning. She knows she really needs protein so she tries to focus on that with fish as her primary source.
She is not really a foodie and does not have a great appetite but she knows that food is medicine. She has had no major illnesses other than Covid a couple of times but recovered from that easily enough. That said she does have guilty pleasures like Cinnabon’s ice cream & chocolate. But she balances this out with healthy foods.
