He is 83 and has ‘a bad heart’. Why he spends 5 hours a day exercising
At 83, Charles Mammay starts most mornings the same way: a good long stretch as soon as he is out of bed, and then adjourning to his home exercise room.
There, he reaches for a pair of 25-pound (11.3kg) dumbbells and begins his routine – shrugs, side bends, then down to the floor for 50 to 80 push-ups and flutter kicks to work his core. An overhang pulley on the door helps him stretch his shoulders; exercise bands add resistance.
By the time most of his neighbours in Oak Island, in the US state of North Carolina, are pouring their first cup of coffee, Mammay is already well into the first phase of a day that will include four to five hours of exercise, repeated six days a week.
It is not unusual for him to visit two gyms in a single day – one for circuit training, another for bodybuilding – after starting with 45 minutes of callisthenics at home.
“Even with a bad heart, I keep going,” he tells the South China Morning Post matter-of-factly.
In 2014, during a cardiology check-up, he was told he had potentially serious issues and that if they were not corrected, he might have only two years to live. He was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation – an irregular, often very rapid heartbeat – and now wears a pacemaker.
