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Strong Heart, Muscles, and Mind

100-year-old Frank Abercrombie defies all odds in the weight room.

Text and photo by Fred Minnick

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Frank Abercrombie strolls into the gym, carefully eyeing every piece of equipment. He loves this room. In fact, the gentle 100-year-old fitness fanatic would spend all his time here if people didn't hold him back. He'd pump all the iron at least twice a day.

Frank struts toward the dumbbells. He grabs the free weights and curls them like he's Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Wait, Frank, the news guy isn't set up yet," says Betty Ankrom, fitness director for ACTS' St. Andrews Estates North in Boca Raton, Florida, and his personal trainer.

I'm the "news guy," and about the time I'm taking off my lens cap, Frank has completed a set. His eagerness to sweat doesn't stop just because I'm in the room. It's been more than a week since the humble senior has worked out. He's recovering from shingles, a sickness that would end the life of most people his age. Other than a couple blemishes, there are no apparent signs of a major malady. He's full of youth, it seems.

"I've always been active," he says. "I just feel better after I use a machine or lift weights."

Frank, a retired vice president for a Seattle bank where he worked for 42 years, exercised almost every day for 45 minutes or more until he was 98—when he was forced to slow down. Today, his workout regimen would tire most teenagers. Three times a week, Frank does three sets and various repetitions of 60 pounds on the seated row machine, 50 pounds on the abdominal machine, and 50 pounds on the lat pull down, as well as walking on the treadmill for seven minutes and working the seated stepper (set on level seven) for 30 minutes.

He also walks every morning in his retirement community's courtyard. "But that's not really working out," he boasts. "You need a machine or weights for a real workout."

Betty, who secretly has a crush on Frank (but don't tell anybody), says she's never met a more disciplined senior. "He pushes himself," she says.

Frank's mind is still strong, too. He reads regularly and keeps up with sports. He fondly recalls a time when professional athletes didn't make so much money. "All the money they make has tainted sports," he says. "I prefer the college games these days."

Besides being an avid sports fan, Frank is a world traveler. He and his late wife, Doris, visited every country but five and toured all of the United States and U.S. territories.

"I'm still in love with her," he says. "She was the best person in the world."

Doris and Frank raised two daughters. When asked if he thinks he's stronger than his seven great-grandchildren, he shrugs off the question. Always a gentleman, Frank would never boast that he's better than his own flesh and blood. But if ever there were a family competition, our money would be on him.

Fred Minnick (fredwrite.com) is a freelance writer and photographer based in Louisville, Kentucky.

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