IT’S NEVER too late to join a gym. Just ask Ray Moon, who at 86 is the world’s oldest competing bodybuilder.
But the most amazing fact about the octogenarian muscle man from Melbourne’s north, who recently beat bladder cancer, is that he only started working out in his mid-70s.
“I was drinking and smoking cigars and living in a motel when I walked past Atheletique Health Club in Preston and asked about joining,” said Ray, who battled childhood pneumonia, meningitis and polio.
He’s also had an aortic valve replacement, a strangulated bowel, a cardiac arrest and was pronounced clinically dead before being fitting with a pacemaker.
“Gym manager and former [Masters>[/embedp>
Now with more than a dozen Victorian and Australian titles under his belt – as well as a Guinness world record – Ray says his mission is to inspire others to get fit.
“With elderly people a lot of them have no idea about going to gyms and they think it’s too hard.
“But you can do cardio on treadmills and some weights and resistance training. As long as you’re out there in the gym, doing something, that’s good.”
Ray said as he gets older, he’s also mindful of his own physical capabilities.
“The machine is wearing on, so I’ve dropped my weights. I used to do a lateral pulldown at around 70kg now I’m doing about half. You have to do things according to your age.”
Ray said the worst thing about competing is getting the spray tan. But he said the best thing about being the world’s oldest competing bodybuilder is the reaction he gets from the audience and up-and-coming bodybuilders.
“I’m competing less now, but only because there’s no one in my age group as mad as me to do it. But I’m going to keep going until I die.”
