Takishima Mika, a 90-year-old fitness instructor in Japan, captivated the world when YouTube tweeted out one of her exercise videos. In the clip, the spry Takishima lifts weights, demonstrates various cardio moves, does pushups and leads students in stretching exercises, all with a huge smile on her face and a sense of irrepressible energy.
The tweet earned over 3,000 likes, and it’s not hard to understand why. At a time when many are stuck in their homes, stress eating and letting their workout routines slide, Takishima is the picture of vitality. And at the age of 90, she’s more than that — she’s an inspiration.
According to Takishima’s YouTube page, this energetic instructor didn’t even begin exercising until the age of 65. She was motivated to do so when her husband made an offhand comment about the weight she’d recently gained. She threw herself into a strict fitness regimen, losing more than 30 pounds over the course of the next five years.
Strength in numbers and age 💪 @power_aging_inc is 90 and still lifting heavy → https://t.co/FnWfkn6MFG pic.twitter.com/Jrm8ot9eJk
— YouTube (@YouTube) March 15, 2021
As Takishima moved through her 70s and 80s, she found that she didn’t experience the usual maladies that often come along with aging. She didn’t suffer from any shoulder, back or knee pain. And now, her exercise regimen has led to becoming a trainer herself.
How Takishima went pro
Nearly 15 years into her embrace of a regular fitness practice, at the age of 79, Takishima began to work with a personal trainer in order to tone her core. According to a story on nisson.com, after eight years of working with Nakasawa Tomoharu, he insisted she become a trainer herself. And so, at the age of 87, Takishima purportedly became Japan’s oldest fitness instructor, working out of the same gym — Power Aging — that had given her a new lease on life.
Takishima was at first hesitant to take up the mantle of trainer, but she tells nisson.com that she’s now motivated by the way her work encourages others to live a good life, even as they begin to experience the normal aches and pains of aging. She mentions a woman who reached out to her, depressed until she saw one of Takishima’s videos. The woman wrote that after seeing how healthy and happy Takishima was, she was inspired to live differently.
“When I realized that what I was doing might help to reduce the number of recluses and old folk who die alone,” Takishima tells nisson.com, she was even more motivated to spread the gospel of healthy living as widely as she could.
What her healthy lifestyle looks like
When you peruse Takishima’s Instagram, you see a life filled with activity. In addition to various product recommendations and shots of her home cooking, there are photos and videos of Takishima engaging in strength training, gymnastics and even hula dancing, which she says she started to learn at the age of 74.
According to nisson.com, Takishima sleeps for only three or four hours every night, rising at 3 a.m. to go walking and jogging for around two hours. She follows this up with a hearty breakfast comprised of protein and fermented foods. Later, she has a light lunch — a banana and a probiotic drink — followed by two hours of stretching and weight training. At the end of the day, she enjoys a glass of wine and a hearty meal. And somehow, in the midst of all of this, she still manages to take care of her house and engage in other activities that help keep her mind sharp, like developing her computer skills and practicing English.
The takeaway for older adults
Continue to eat three balanced meals a day
Takishima eats three meals a day, filled with fresh vegetables and various sources of protein. She avoids artificial additives and preservatives. This aligns with the advice of MedlinePlus, a service of the National Library of Medicine, which recommends that older adults eat foods with lots of nutrients, even as their caloric intake decreases.
Beyond this, nisson.com reports that Takishima does not impose any stringent dietary restrictions upon herself. Rather, she eats what she wants — and as much of it as she wants — trusting that her body knows what it needs.
Stay active with a mix of stretching and strength training
Takishima teaches her students what she refers to as Takimika Gymnastics, a mix of stretching, aerobics and strength-building exercises that work the spine, the shoulders, the hip joints and the trunk of the body.
According to the National Institute on Aging, aerobic activities help increase breathing and heart rate, while strength-building exercises keep the muscles strong and stretching keeps the body limber.
Stay social
Takishima is determined to keep her peers from self-isolating. And she practices what she preaches. In addition to helping others, she finds that her role as a trainer allows her to make friends from around the world. In addition to being good, plain fun, research shows that remaining social in your later years is good for your physical and mental health.
Because of the pandemic, Takishima is teaching just one 60-minute online class a month, a class for men and women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s that features aerobics and core training routines she designed herself.
But even if you can’t make it to one of Takishima’s classes, her life provides much to admire and learn from.
And the number one lesson she hopes to impart? Age is just a number.
