Mulanya dia adalah wanita biasa, orang kebanyakan, dan sudah mulai berumur (bahkan sudah sepuh !).
Di usia ke 72 tahun Morjorie memulai olah raga angkat berat di sebuah gymnasium di Philadelphia. Richard Brown seorang personal trainer di gym itu sangat kaget melihat seorang nenek tua yang memilih exercise tidak seperti para wanita lain umumnya. Dan nenek ini tetap datang dalam hitungan hari, minggu dan bulan. Akhirnya setelah beberapa bulan hasilnya mulai kelihatan.
Teman-teman bisa membayangkan seseorang perempuan tua berusia 72 tahun memiliki otot-otot yang terbentuk di sekujur tubuhnya dan memiliki perut six packed, seperti Jennifer Lopez ?

Hmmm....nenek Morjorie memilikinya.
Dan ia memilikinya saat berusia usia 72 tahun.
(Ooohhh....I'm speechless !!, bikin ngiri..)
Sampai usia 86 tahun (jadi kira-kira 13 tahun berkiprah di kompetisi bodybuilding), nenek Morjorie memenangkan hampir 40 piala dalam berbagai kompetisi bodybuilding di Amerika, Itali, Perancis dan Jerman. Morjorie mungkin adalah bodybuilder tertua yang pernah ada. Dan nenek Morjorie berkompetisi dengan orang-orang yang berusia separuh dari umurnya !!

Ketekunan dan semangat (yang tidak dimiliki oleh orang-orang seusianya) teramat sangat menginspirasi saya dan sungguh mengubahkan paradigma saya. Kalau Morjorie di usianya yang ke 86 masih mampu lakukan, maka saya yang separuh usianya harusnya lebih mampu lagi. Kalau Morjorie di usia 72 tahun tidak malu untuk belajar sesuatu yang baru, seharusnya saya yang jauh lebih muda dari dia lebih tidak malu untuk belajar sesuatu yang baru.
Hidup Morjorie mengajarkan saya bahwa 'it's never too late to start'.

Dan inilah kalimat Morjorie yang layak diquote :
"I always felt I could do whatever I want to. And now I know I can."

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Six years ago at 72, Morjorie Newlin won her first bodybuilding contest.  "When the judge announced her age, the audience went haywire", recalls her former trainer, bob Rivers.  "I thought they were applauding because the old lady made it onto the stage", jokes Newlin.

"I just can't go and find somebody to ask for help every time I want to lift a finger", says Morjorie Newlin, explaining why she took up bodybuilding.  

We were at a gym in Philadelphia where Newlin was training for the National Physique Committee's Philadelphia Bodybuilding Championships.  Newlin sat down at the leg-press machine, bracing her feet against a platform connected to 180 pounds of cast iron.  She pushed it back and forth 12 times, then paused and did three more sets of 12.  Not bad for a 78-year-oldgrandmother of four who started weightlifting just six years ago.

Newlin, who has won 25 trophies so far, said it was never her intention to bare her sculptured muscles in public.  She began lifting weights to become strong enough to handle everyday tasks, like keeping her cat supplied with kitty litter.  A few years ago, her supermarket had a sale on 50-pound bags, but Newlin couldn't find anyone to lift them off the shelf.  That's no longer a problem.  Nor is the upkeep of her two-story home, "I always felt I could do whatever I want to," she said, "and now I know I can".  Newlin shovels snow, cuts grass and hauls a 50-pound fan up from the basement every spring.  "I couldn't do all this before without being worn out."  Newlin always enjoyed exercising.  After finishing her workday as a registered nurse, she'd often stop into a health club for a stint on the treadmill or stationary bike.  But after retiring in 1987 to care for her terminally ill husband, Newlin decided to take up weight training. She knew resistance training with free weights and machines builds strength, stamina and endurance, and it prevents osteoporosis.

One day Newlin entered Rivers Gym, a Mecca for serious bodybuilders, then owned by Bob Rivers.  It wasn't long before Rivers spotted her commitment and potential.  "Rain, shine, cold weather - - I'd look up and she'd be there," he recalled.  

Rivers took charge of Newlin's training.  At first he was concerned about pushing her too hard, but as Newlin's strength increased weekly, Rivers noticed she could perform feats that people many years younger couldn't.  "It was amazing to watch a 72-year-old body in that

condition," he noted.  Rivers decided that it was time for Newlin to compete, but when he showed her the teeny-weeny bikini she'd be wearing to display her muscles, she said, "No way!!"  Then she reconsidered.

"I knew the contest meant a lot to him," said Newlin, "so I thought, 'I'll do this once - - but I'm nhot going to do it again!'"  She won.  "When the judge announced her age, the audience went haywire," Rivers recalled.  Newlin had a different take: "I thought they were applauding because the old lady made it onto the stage", she joked. 

After that victory, Rivers stepped up Newlin's training, mindful to constantly ask her how she felt.  "She was bench- pressing 65 pounds when she was 73 years old and 85 pounds at 74," Rivers said.  When Rivers retired, Newlin, then 75, was doing squats with a 100-pound barbell across her shoulders.

Newlin credits her mother for teaching her to set goals and achieve them.  Born in Philadelphia to immigrants form Barbados, Newlin lost her father when she was 5.  Her mother worked as a seamstress to support Morjorie and her two sisters.  Newlin earned a nursing degree and married in 1946.  She and her husband, Raymond, a railroad electrician, staggered their work hours so one of them was always at home with their four children.  

Morjorie Newlin's Exercise Tips:
Can someone 80 or even older start a fitness program?  Anyone -- with a doctor's approval -- can increase his or her strength, says the 78-year-old bodybuilding champion Morjorie Newlin.

http://www.fitbygeno.com/morjorie_newlin-getting_older.htm