“You can start a new life at any age”
Charles Eugster became a recordbreaking athlete in his nineties.
WHEN former dental surgeon Charles Eugster retired, he admits he wasn’t in good shape. “My practice was going well, but I was a self-satisfied lump of lard!”
Then, when he retired, he had plenty of time to be active – but it wasn’t concern for his health that got him moving.
“In my youth I was a rower and I discovered at the age of sixty-three that there was a new category for sixty-year-olds. I just wanted to impress my wife with a gold medal and I decided to row!”
However, it proved to be the start of a relationship with sport that has seen him take up bodybuilding at eighty-seven and sprinting at the age of ninety-five. Charles has felt an immense benefit to his health as a result (he’s only had two slight colds in the last seven years), and now he’s written a book to share that message.
“What I want to do, of course, is to change the world! A great fear that I have is that my children will live in poverty unless we do something serious, because the ageing population is so incredibly expensive.
“The other thing is that because older people have so much chronic disease, this accounts for about seventy-six per cent of all NHS costs – it’s astronomical. It’s an incredible situation where seventeen per cent of those over sixty-five have four or more chronic diseases and, unless we do something radical, pension costs worldwide are going to slow the economy and destroy our present health system.”
Charles thinks we need to redefine retirement to address the situation.
“I think retirement is a financial disaster and a health catastrophe, because we know that people who are employed are healthier and those who are unemployed have mental health issues and chronic disease. Retirement is nothing more than voluntary or involuntary unemployment.”
Charles is a strong advocate of staying active physically and mentally.
“From the age of about fifty, people lose muscle mass. The older people get, the more muscle mass is lost, so by the age of about eighty-five, some people have lost fifty per cent of their muscle mass, replaced by fat. In order to combat this loss you have to do resistance training or muscle building training.”
Which is exactly what Charles did. He now holds British records for
60 metres, 100 metres and 200 metres sprints and long jump, as well as a staggering 40 gold medals for rowing.
“I started sprinting at the age of ninety-five, something that I’ve never done before.
“One should learn continuously. Lifelong learning should not stop at sixty-five but continue to the end of life. The most important thing for health in old age is to have a job, an occupation.
“The Queen is ninety years old and she’s not somebody that jogs in the park at six o’clock in the morning, but she has a job and that is the fundamental basis for health in old age.
“The other thing is nutrition. There is far too little research on nutrition for older people, who generally eat far too much carbohydrate when they should have more protein, because protein synthesis in old age is reduced.
“Of course, the final thing is exercise. It’s essential to combat frailty and loss of muscle mass. In fact, older people should do far more exercise than the average younger person!”
Charles has done so much research on the ageing process that medical professionals come to listen to his talks. He’s keen to stress that making changes can be done at any age and stage of life.
“You can rebuild your body at any age, you can learn something new at any age and you can start a new life at any age!”