PASADENA – Kicking off a New Year’s resolution to get fit in 2009? Take some inspiration from Beatrice Maullin.
About twice a week, the 87-year-old Altadena resident straps on her weight-lifting gloves, lies down on a bench press and starts pumping iron.
She spends about two hours per workout sweating at the Gold’s Gym on Altadena Drive in Pasadena in preparation for her annual dominance at the Pasadena Senior Olympics later this year.
Since she began entering weight-lifting competitions in her 60s, Maullin has amassed 49 gold medals and holds the world record for the bench press in the 85-90 age class.
“That’s my forte,” she said. “How that happened, I don’t know.”
Granted, she doesn’t face much competition.
“We don’t even see others at her age group,” said her son, Robert Kornstein, 68.
Maullin never lifted a weight until she was old enough to qualify for Social Security. She saw an ad for the Senior Olympics while scanning the newspaper and was talked into participating after she offered to volunteer to help.
“I was a late starter,” she said.
Maullin doesn’t have a set routine. She usually starts with her signature event, the bench press, “and then it just depends which one is available.”
She mixes in pulldowns, arm curls and leg extensions, as well.
Maullin worked as a dancer in her teens before she got married and has always exercised, she said.
“I’m very flexible,” she explained, bending down to touch her toes.
While she needs the assistance of a cane, Maullin is otherwise able to handle her own workout routine.
“She’s very self-sufficient,” said Justin Seitz, the membership manager for Gold’s Gym. “I’ve spotted her a couple times, but that’s it.”
Because of New Year’s resolutions, January is typically the time when people join gyms, Seitz said. Maullin has been a motivational figure at Gold’s, and she’s helped attract a large senior number of seniors to the gym. Some older members have ask for help with certain exercises after seeing her do them, Seitz said.
When she started, “they didn’t have any women my age exercising,” she said. “I helped bring them in.”
Maullin said she will continue to lift weights as long as she’s able.
“We’ll do this until she can’t leave home anymore,” said Kornstein. “We’ll carry her in if necessary.”
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