Pushing 95, this lady's a gym rat

Esther Cohen smiles as she wends her way through the circuit of strength-training machines. She smiles as she pushes, she smiles as she pulls. It's a 1,000-watt smile, that lights up at the Bally sport club in Bay Shore, outshining the gleaming rows of treadmills with LED displays, and the high-def flat-screen TVs suspended from the ceiling.

This fitness buff from Bay Shore has good reason to smile. In her mid-90s, Esther (everyone calls her Esther) walks without a cane, has lived in the same home for more than half a century, enjoys an active social life with friends and family -- and she remembers everybody's names.

"She's always smiling and laughing, always happy," says Valentin Ledano of Brentwood, a morning regular at the gym. Ledano, 44, shakes his head admiringly as Esther, still smiling and without any assistance, hops on the next machine in her workout routine. "Incredible," he says.

Her physician of seven years, Dr. Jeffrey Nakhjavan, a family medicine practitioner in West Babylon, concurs. When asked if Esther is in good health for her age -- she turns 95 on Friday -- he laughs and says, "Her health is excellent for a 45-year-old."

The latest U.S. Census Bureau data shows that the number of people 90 or older tripled between 1980 and 2010. And Esther is a wonderful case in point of how to remain vibrant well into your ninth decade.

First and foremost, there's her consistent physical activity. Statistics compiled by the Boston-based industry trade group International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, say 65-and-older individuals now make up 13.2 percent of the national gym population. But very few of them are nonagenarians like Esther -- and not many have been working out in gyms for as long as she has.

Workouts started in 1976

Esther, who was born in 1917 and grew up in the Bronx, started training at Bally when it was a few miles from its current location and called Holiday Spa. That was in 1976. Esther was 59, and her husband, Abe, was 65 and recently retired.

"He wanted to stay home and relax like everybody else," recalls their son Jack Cohen, 73, who lives with his mother. "My brother forced him to join a gym. He said: 'Dad, you've got to do something. You can't just stay home.' " Abe decided his son might be right. He signed up at the local gym, and, of course, his wife followed. "Whatever he said, she did," Jack says. "That's the way their marriage was. But in this case, it was a good thing she did."

For more than 30 years, the couple went to the gym almost daily. They used the machines, they did calisthenics and -- just as important -- they made friends there. Even when the gym moved and its name changed from Holiday to Jack LaLanne, to Bally Total Fitness, the Cohens stuck with it. In 2009, Abe died at age 98. After a brief period following his death, Esther returned to the gym and, since then, has been going three times a week.

"I think the key is that she has continued to do it for so many years," says exercise physiologist Hank Williford, a senior fitness expert, at Auburn University-Montgomery in Alabama, who doesn't know Esther but supports physical activity regardless of age. "Exercise is all about day after day after day."

In her 60-minute strength-training regimen, Esther uses minimal resistance and her own body weight. Between that and all this smiling, you might wonder how hard she's working. The answer: Enough to make a difference.

"It's been proven that just moderate exercise over a long period of time is beneficial," Williford says. "You don't have to be lifting really heavy weights."

Esther's long-standing routine using a half-dozen machines works for her. She finishes on the last apparatus in the circuit, one that allows her to work her triceps while seated.

"Now, I go touch my toes," she says, grabbing a visitor's hand and walking to the floor-work area. "Look," she says proudly, "I can do it 20 times." She throws her arms overhead, bends at the waist, extends her arms, touches the tips of her shoes, stands erect and starts again. She needs no help. Standing confidently and firmly, there's no trace of wobble or balance issues.

Maintaining healthy routines

Her routine carries through to other parts of her life, like her diet. She keeps things simple and eliminates the guesswork by eating pretty much the same things every day (see box).

And her day-to-day schedule is similarly regimented: Early to bed (8 p.m.), early to rise (4:45 a.m.). On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, she's at the gym, usually by 8:15 a.m. Using public transportation, she goes to the West Islip Senior Center on Wednesdays, and once a month, travels to Ronkonkoma for meetings with retirees of Local 3, an electricians' union her husband belonged to. Since her cataract surgery last year, her son says, she no longer needs to wear glasses.

What she enjoys even more at Bally than her exercises are the people she sees there. Nearly everyone on the crowded gym floor gets a hello or a hug from Esther. She brightens when she spots Bryan Morales and his 2-year-old daughter, Sophia, coming out of the child care area. "Look!" says Esther, who has three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. "She's so cute."

Sophia smiles back as her father holds her. He's a friend of Esther as well. "She's a remarkable woman," Morales says. "When she told me her age, I couldn't believe it."

Gerontologists say social connectedness becomes more important as we age, and Esther embraces that theory. "She interacts with a lot of younger people here," says Bally's personal trainer Donald Archer, 52, who occasionally works with Esther. "That's probably good for her, too."

Williford concurs. "The social aspect of the gym probably does her as much good as the physical aspect," he says. "A lot of people start programs and quit programs. One reason is that they're not real excited about going to the gym."

Esther is very excited: About coming to the gym. About touching her toes. About living her life to the best of her abilities, every day. "I do enjoy it, you know," Esther says -- with a smile, naturally.

From her diet to her exercise routine, Esther Cohen, who turns 95 on Friday, is the model of consistency.

AT THE GYM
Esther follows a circuit of six strength-training machines that target certain muscle groups.

She performs 15 to 20 repetitions on each, trying to accumulate a total of 100 reps. The machines are used for basic strength-training movements, best learned by having a qualified fitness pro show you how.

Leg press Works the entire lower body — quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes; she sits upright and pushes forward on a foot plate linked to an adjustable weight stack.
Seated ‘lat’ rows Works the back muscles with a rowing motion
Hip abductor/Adductor machine Works the muscles of the inner thigh, using resistance
‘Pec Deck’ fly Works the pectoral (chest) muscles in a motion akin to hugging a tree
Leg press Second set
Triceps extension Works the back of the arms, using resistance

Machine reps are followed by toe touches, leg swings, arm circles and occasionally — with the assistance of a trainer — core exercises such as medicine ball-twists.

ESTHER’S EVERYDAY DIET
Breakfast One slice whole-wheat low-sodium bread with sugar-free jelly and five prunes.
Lunch A sandwich with whole-wheat low- sodium bread, low-sodium bologna, turkey or salami. A couple of times a week, she’ll pick up lunch from Subway.
Dinner Fish, chicken, or turkey burger with potato, veggies and salad.
Dessert Fruit. There’s no junk food in her cupboards.