68-Year-Old "Granny" Wins Bodybuilding Competitions—How She Got Fit in Her Golden Years

1. Create a workout routine and stick with it.

Flowers feels her best when she’s working out. "You can’t keep me out of the gym," she told The Washington Post.

But ultimately, the most important thing is to design an exercise schedule that fits your needs and goals, and that feels attainable.

Known for her chiseled triceps and biceps, Flowers gets her toned arms by doing dumbbell skull crushers, triceps pushdown, overhead rope triceps extension, dumbbell curls, rope curls, and standing bar cable curls, to name a few. She does four rounds of each exercise, consisting of eight to 12 repetitions with small breaks in between.

However, when you’re just starting out, the main thing is to just get your body moving.

"If you stay at home and sit around, everything gets stiff," said Flowers, who suffers from arthritis and bone deterioration in her left foot. "Then it hurts more, and it just compounds the whole problem."

2. Tap into your mental strength.

The hardest part about working out is finding the mental fortitude to get off the couch and lace up your sneakers. A 2023 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that it takes around six months to become a habitual gymgoer.

"You have to have the desire and the drive inside your head and in your heart," Flowers told Business Insider, noting that her tenacity is what pushed her to get in shape. "It doesn't matter what you're doing or what your goals are, but you need to get started in order to form a habit."

This applies to facing any fears you may have, too, which Flowers did with the help of her son.

"I was really nervous about people staring at me or having something to say about my age, but I had reached my limit with the home workouts," she told The Guardian about first visiting the gym. "So we went in together, tried a few machines and after I left I remember saying to Ryan: 'That wasn’t so bad.'"

RELATED: If You Can Lift This Many Pounds, You're in Great Shape, Doctors Say.

3. Be mindful of your diet for muscle growth.

While working out can help you trim belly fat and boost endurance levels, "you're not going to grow muscle if you're not eating what you need to eat for your goals,” said Flowers. She’s found success following the carb cycling diet.

Carb cycling is an intermittent low-carb diet. Eating Well explains it best: It’s “a method of eating in which you alternate how many carbs you eat each day—high, moderate or low—based on your workouts and long-term goals. The thinking is that your low-carb days put you in a fat-burning state, and eating high-carb boosts your metabolism.”

Consuming lean protein, chickpeas, quinoa, Greek yogurt, brown rice, almonds, eggs, beans, and fish are excellent ways to increase muscle growth, according to Heathline. Conversely, you’ll want to avoid ultra-processed foods, fried foods, refined carbs, and added sugars.

4. Follow the motto, "Slow and steady wins the race."

"You don't want to overdo it because you can hurt yourself, and then you just put yourself back," Flowers told Business Insider of why she encourages beginners to take things slowly. "It's taken me quite a bit of time to get to where I am, but with time, persistence, and discipline, you can accomplish anything you put your mind to."

RELATED: 108-Year-Old Runner Shared Her "Magic" Secret for Longevity.

5. Find a community that uplifts you.

Through weightlifting, Flowers has found her "fit family"” who she otherwise might have never met.

"They are the friends that I didn't have all my life because I was isolated with my husbands and work," she said. "I love being part of that group. It's a community. It makes me feel good, and it gives me the confidence to keep going. They are very, very supportive."

"It’s wonderful to fit in and I’m breaking the stigma for others too," she added. "Even in our local gym, I’m noticing older people joining. I now have more self confidence than I’ve ever had in my whole life."