Dick Van Dyke still tries to “hit the gym three times a week,” even as he nears 100 years old.
“I’m not a ‘wake up and go back to bed’ type just yet, unless it’s cold and rainy,” Van Dyke wrote in his book 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life, published on Tuesday, November 18. “If I miss too many gym days, I really can feel it — a stiffness creeping in here and there in my joints.”
Van Dyke wrote that he has to “dangle” a few “carrots” in front of himself when feeling “sluggish and reluctant” on a gym day.
“[A] huge smoothie and/or frothy caffeine treat after my workout, full-body tingly exhilaration, sharper mind, sense of accomplishment to bask in for the rest of the day nap time [that is] well-earned, limber dancing in the days ahead,” he wrote.
When at the gym, Van Dyke is into “circuit” training, he wrote.
“Going from one machine to the next without a break, in a circle,” Van Dyke explained. “I start with sit-ups on the sit-up machine.”
The actor wrote that his wife, Arlene Silver, is “exaggerating” when she says he can do “500” situps.
“Then, it’s lower body — I do all the leg machines religiously and repeatedly because my legs are two of my most cherished [parts]. And then the upper body,” he wrote. “The sector ingredient to my gym time is the music. For some reason, our gym is sparsely attended in the early mornings — bad for the owners, but better for me and Arlene. She knows how to get into the sound system, so she always brings my kind of stuff, and she really blasts it.”
Van Dyke added, “It’s the music that really gets me going. … By the end of my workout, I’m in a sweaty rush, the blood flowing fingertips to toes and my spirits are soaring.”
Earlier this year, Van Dyke made headlines for showing off his muscles in a gym selfie with Rick Springfield.
“Filming an episode of Men’s Health and I went to the gym and who should be there but 99 year-old Dick Van Dyke working out on every machine,” Springfield wrote on social media at the time. “Dick has lived in Malibu for about 30 years and is an awesome human being. I thought I was doing well at 76, but Dick got up from the chest press machine and did a little dance step before I left! Amazing!”
Van Dyke has explained previously that he’s not just a gym guy.
“I’m doing a lot of stretching and yoga-type things. Sit ups. And they have machines … something for almost every exercise,” the Mary Poppins star said on Ted Danson’s “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast in January.
Van Dyke has discussed his age at length since gearing up to his milestone birthday.
“It’s frustrating to feel diminished in the world, physically and socially,” he told The Sunday Times earlier this month. “I get invites to events or offers for gigs in New York or Chicago, but that kind of travel takes so much out of me that I have to say no. Almost all of my visiting with folks has to happen at my house.”
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