The oldest bodybuilder in the world is a 90-year-old great-grandfather of nine who has been training for over 70 years and can lift more than his body weight.
Jim Arrington, who turns 91 next month, was awarded the title at age 83 – and has held it ever since.
The self-proclaimed “gym rat” credited that building muscle kept him in good health and enabled him to “do anything an able-bodied person can.”
“Oh, exercising definitely helped me live longer,” he told DailyMail.com.
“I can just keep doing things that a person my age normally can’t do. It’s just the ability to function more or less normally like I was 21 and on a bike that I’m pretty happy with.
‘An elderly person walks with a walker or something similar, but I can take longer steps because the exercise removes the inflammation in your joints.’
Jim Arrington, who turns 91 next month, has been named the world’s oldest bodybuilder. He told DailyMail.com that he can lift up to 250 pounds with his legs — or 1.5 times his body weight
His love affair with bodybuilding started when he was 15 years old and was looking for a way to get rid of asthma. He’s pictured above this year on a beach in Los Angeles, California, near where he lives
Mr. Arrington visits the gym three times a week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday – about two hours a day. He sets aside weekends for recovery time, to help his muscles repair themselves.
The 160-pound phenom revealed what he lifts at his Los Angeles gym, telling DailyMail.com that his leg exercise max was 250 pounds — or 1.5 times his body weight.
For his arms, the former salesman said he can lift biceps curl up to 100 pounds — while during chest and back exercises he can lift as much as 140 pounds.
And he still adds to his impressive fitness routine.
Within five months, he was able to improve his skill on a stationary bike from just five minutes on level five to ten minutes of cycling on level 11.
In setting up his training schedule, he said Monday was devoted to his back and chest, while Wednesday focused on his legs and Friday on his shoulders and arms.
He does his exercises on machines and says that as he’s gotten older, his joints have gotten weaker, making it riskier for him to lift free weights.
“I don’t want to do more than what my body and my joints can handle — because there’s no point in wearing your joints,” he said.
“I lift as much as possible for the condition of my skeletal structure.”
For his exercises, he said he normally starts with a warmup of lifting 40 pounds for 20 reps, or lifting 20 times, then adding another 40 pounds before gradually increasing the weight to his maximum.
“When it’s at a weight I can barely get reps out of, I wrapped my knees in elastic leg wrap and did the reps and didn’t stop.” I would hold it at the top and take a few deep breaths, then do a few more, until I get to 20 reps.
“I’m pretty out of breath and can barely walk afterwards.”
It lifts up to 250 pounds on a machine similar to a leg press with the user lying on their back instead of in the standard bent-forward position.
Mr Arrington has followed his exercise routine for over 70 years.
He is pictured above working out at his gym in Los Angeles, California. He will compete in an Over-90 category for bodybuilders next month
He is pictured above working on his abs in his gym. He said the maximum he could lift with his legs was about 250 pounds
His love of bodybuilding began when he was just 15 years old and saw it as a way to combat his crippling asthma.
“I was very sickly and asthmatic (at the time) and I couldn’t run more than 50 meters without wheezing,” he told DailyMail.com.
“So I saw these ads in a magazine about working out and getting strong and strong and that was a good thing for me. I decided to send these booklets and try the exercises.’
He began training with 3-pound balls in 1947 and soon found that his asthma subsided as he gained over 10 pounds of muscle.
He then began training with his Scouts group leader before going to college and setting foot in a gym for the first time.
Now, decades later, he maintains a regular workout regimen and still competes in — and wins — bodybuilding competitions, with his latest win in the Over-80s category at the IFBB Professional League championships held last month in Reno, Nevada. He was third in the Over-70s.
He is pictured above lifting weights on a beach in Los Angeles, California
Mr. Arrington is pictured above at one of his first bodybuilding competitions
Mr. Arrington is preparing to compete in another contest in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania early next month. Pictured above with his muscles
He first started competing in the 1950s, initially for the title of Mr America, but soon decided he had “no chance” because he “didn’t have the genetics.”
“I thought my best shot at becoming someone in this field was waiting for everyone to grow up and do something else or die,” he said.
He has competed in over 70 competitions, won many accolades and is now starting to win more often in older categories.
He is currently training for the Pro Masters World Championships to be held next month in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he has persuaded organizers to add an Over-90s category.
But one of the accolades he’s most proud of is being the world’s oldest bodybuilder, a title he received from the Guinness World Records.
To fuel his rigorous exercise routine, Mr. Arrington initially focused on drinking a lot of milk and eating beef to help him build muscle mass.
In later years, however, this caused inflammation, he said, prompting him to switch to a diet higher in vegetables and whole foods.
Mr Arrington said training has kept him young and healthy, enabling him to look after wife May, 84, who suffers from dementia.
The couple has been married for more than 40 years, and he credits his condition to the fact that he can do more to help her around the house — and drive her to appointments.
The couple share four children and nine great-grandchildren.
Mr. Arrington says he’s revealing his story to encourage others, especially older adults, to get back into weightlifting.
He said, “My goal and my goal is to encourage others to lift weights.”