I went from sedentary to gym bunny – at 63

Don’t hate me for becoming one of those cringey, boring, self-righteous people - Andrew Crowley
Don’t hate me for becoming one of those cringey, boring, self-righteous people - Andrew Crowley

Do you love sitting down? Is kitchen disco the only form of vertical exercise you can ­tolerate? Does the thought of even walking into a gym fill you with horror?

I hear you. That used to be my exercise CV too, but in the past few months I have become a card-carrying – well, phone app-carrying – Gym Bunny.

I leap out of bed every morning at 7am, genuinely excited to get to my gym (MY gym), where I row 3k in under 20 minutes, before working out on the weight machines.

I fling medicine balls around and swing kettlebells for England. I hold a plank for one minute, every day. And most amazing of all: I love it. I curse a day when I can’t go.

Please don’t stop reading. Don’t hate me for becoming one of those cringey, boring, self-righteous people who “works out” and has special clothes for it. Believe me, I’ve despised them all my adult life, finding every possible reason to believe that my own sedentary style was more righteous.

Priced at only £20 a month, today's gyms are truly inclusive - Andrew Crowley
Priced at only £20 a month, today's gyms are truly inclusive - Andrew Crowley

Cool people don’t exercise, I told myself; they think and connect and have original ideas ... while looking side-eye at Barack Obama, out for his daily jog, achieving everything.

So what exactly effected this ­personal revolution, which turned me, at the ripe old age of 63, from a ­horizontal hero into a workout weirdo?

Several things. The first was ­discovering, slightly by accident (explained below), how astonishingly good regular sweaty, resistance ­exercise makes you feel. Not just more toned, but taller, sleeping better, aches and pains all gone, much sharper brain-wise, happier, more sure-footed. About 30 years younger.

In fact, everything they’ve told us all this time about the benefits of ­exercise turns out to be true.

The second thing was discovering a new genre of venue to do the sweaty-­making, muscle-challenging activities in, because a revolution has quietly happened in the UK’s fitness market. There are now chains of a new style of gym, where no one is made to feel like the one picked last for netball.

They don’t have the oppressive atmosphere of golf clubs either, or prison gyms. These new clubs are airy, bright, friendly, modern and cool. And they cost £20 a month for full membership (some are even cheaper), which you can cancel at any time. So they are truly inclusive.

There are other brands, but I’m a devoted member of the Hastings branch of the Gym Group – one of 230 around the country – and I feel evangelical about the difference it has made to my life, through its everybody’s welcome, unscary atmosphere.

The company’s specific mission is to banish the “gymtimidation” that has put so many people off – and it’s certainly working for me. It’s so different from all the other gyms I’ve tried.

I’ve done the Year’s Contract Nightmare (“It’s an investment in myself”), a place so snobby and intimidating I never went back there, but had to keep paying the stiff monthly sub.

Then, when living in Sydney, I went to the Terrifying Gym. No contract, but the world’s fittest people made me feel about as welcome as a surfing grommet in a good swell.

On returning to the UK, I tried the Local Authority Sports Centre and found it intensely off-putting on a microbial level. It felt like you could get a verruca just by looking at the floor.

So having given it my best go, I felt entitled to give up on gyms, choosing instead to stick to kindly yoga, which at least kept me flexible and ever-so-slightly toned. I also did the odd Zumba class, which was fun, but I’d really rather disco-dance free-form. With a drink.

Then, about three years ago, I got a weird hip thing. Not arthritis but ­terrible joint pain that made it hard to walk sometimes. I spent a fortune on osteopaths and seriously considered getting a walking stick.

Maggie's life has been revolutionised - Andrew Crowley
Maggie's life has been revolutionised - Andrew Crowley

My husband (a retired pro sportsman, so he knows his stuff in this area – ­opposites attract ...) suggested I try resistance training to build my muscles to support the joint. And he put me in the care of a lovely colleague of his who runs the gym in the local sixth-form college.

Dear Gilberto, with his GSOH, warm smile and genius music mixes (one minute 1990s house, then disco, then, bless me, is that Baba O’Riley?) was the first stage of breaking down my gym phobia.

With kindness, patience and that all-important banter, he showed me how to use the weight machines (which can seem a bit deckchair-fiddly at first) and some free-form moves – and pushed me much harder than I ever would have myself. Then, like a good daddy bird, he left me to fly alone.

It was just enough of a framework to start me on my journey to fitness. In the ensuing months, through the exercise and Dr Mosley’s brilliant Fast 800 Keto diet, I lost 2st – and all the pain in my hip with it.

Then disaster struck – or so it seemed – when the college decided to limit entry to the gym for non-students. 
But a brand-new gym had just opened in Hastings town centre and although the thought of going there was daunting, the prospect of that hip pain recurring was even scarier. So, I ­summoned all my courage and went to have a look at the Gym Group’s facility.

It was a revelation. No contract; ­scrupulously clean; banks of brand-new, top-end equipment. And, like I said, £20 a month.
But the real clincher for me was the clientele. The amazing value for money means that this is truly a gym for ­everybody – and every body. And so everybody goes.

Maggie finds herself fascinated by the range of her ­fellow gym bunnies - Andrew Crowley
Maggie finds herself fascinated by the range of her ­fellow gym bunnies - Andrew Crowley

I’m fascinated by the range of my ­fellow gym bunnies, with the full gamut over every metric of age, race, neuro-­diversity and just plain type of people.

There are gym-goers with various disabilities, mobility issues and medical conditions – and every shape, size and level of fitness. There’s one guy who struggles to walk but lifts massive weights. It’s inspiring to be around ­people like that.
Of course, there are the uber-fits, the perfect bodies and the seriously built weightlifter men and women. But there are also people older than me and much more overweight.

Everyone just comes in and gets on with it, creating a collegiate feeling of being united in intention. Any time I’ve asked someone for help – some of the bars are too high for me to change on my own – or just chatted about moves and stuff, my fellow gym goers have been friendly and lovely.

But on top of all those benefits – ­feeling 29 again, the price being so right, the people-watching and ­camaraderie – there is another crucial factor that has turned me into a committed gym bunny: my daughter.

I was 42 when I had her; she’s just 20 years old. She’s going to have properly old parents while she’s still relatively young and I feel a strong sense of responsibility to do what I can to ease the stress of that for her.
And as well as the general health ­benefits of not being overweight, numerous studies have shown that ­resistance training specifically helps to prevent many of the problems that make old age tough: brittle bones, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and arthritis.

It also preserves mobility, making falls less likely, and – most motivating for me – it enhances cognitive function, actively protecting the brain against dementia.

For this reason – which is much more important than getting into my smallest jeans – I’m sticking to my six gym hits a week. With the NHS so ­visibly cracking at the seams, the responsibility to take care of our own health seems more pressing than ever. To actively aim to prevent illness, rather than passively expecting it to be patched up.

In this way, I intend to age into a strong and spry old lady, fully engaged with the world.

And so, I appeal to you, my fellow horizontalists, for your own sake, for your children, for the NHS – give these new, cheap, inclusive and friendly gyms a go.

You might even find you like it.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.