Fred Woolman is presented Guinness honors on his 84th birthday.
ROCHESTER, Minn — The fitness instructor bounces from side to side, his feet a blur, his arms lifted skyward.
“Alright,” Fred Woolman shouts into his headset as 50, mostly, seniors lift their arms in unison. “Pick ’em up, put ’em down!” he barks.
Fred is trim. His biceps bulge from beneath the sleeves of his black t-shirt. He pauses, only briefly, so his class can sing “happy birthday.”
The perpetual-motion-machine-of-a-man has just turned 84.
“He does not look 84. He doesn’t act 84, at all,” Sue Davis, a member of Fred’s fitness class, says.
Fred has the birth certificate to prove his age. A copy now lives in a file at Guinness World Records.
On Fred’s 84th birthday, Guinness adjudicator Hannah Ortman presented the octogenarian with his certificate for world’s oldest active male personal trainer, a new Guinness category.
As applause died down at the luncheon honoring Fred’s accomplishment, he quipped to the crowd, “I’m fighting the urge to have you all stand up and do some jumping jacks with me.”
Tom Rigby would have been up for it. The 71-year-old gets personal training from Fred, despite a 13-year age difference between student and trainer. “That’s why I do it with him, to see if I can keep up,” Tom says with a smile.
Fitness is not new to Fred, whose other activities have included mountain climbing, biking, and running 22 marathons.
On turning 84, Fred says he adheres to a simple philosophy. “Keep moving and don’t think about that number. I’ve never ever had age be a consideration for what I wanted to do.”
Fred certainly doesn’t sound like a man who’s pondering another retirement.
“If I got rid of that class and didn’t replace it with something, then I’d probably just become an old guy,” Fred says before pausing and reiterating, “I’d be an old guy.”
Lynda Gilbertson, a member of Fred’s fitness class, sees no signs of her instructor slowing down.
“Some of us are dragging by the end of the day,” she says, “and he could go again.”
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