Old man and the gym: 82-year-old trainer still going strong

LEDE, Calif. — Don't call Richard Commins "spry," that condescending adjective frequently attached to any older adult who is ambulatory enough to get out and do something.

OK, so what do you call an 82-year-old who — when not working in his lush yard or repairing the roof of his home — is pumping iron, puffing away through push-ups and pull-ups, revving up the elliptical machine, working those core muscles and maintaining balance on a trampoline?

Answer: personal trainer.

No records are kept, but Commins might be the oldest personal trainer in the nation. He gained accreditation in 1985 after completing classes at California State University, Sacramento, following retirement as a longtime middle school industrial arts teacher.

After working in health clubs for years, schooling gym members in the fundamentals of fitness, Commins is starting to ease back a bit. He has a handful of clients who come to his humble home gym, and he serves as an on-site trainer when he and his wife, Rona, go on cruises.

"I think I can be an inspiration to people," says Commins, smiling but sans boastfulness. "A lot of people look at me and say, 'Boy, if he can do that at 82, I ought to get in shape.'"

Indeed, if Jack LaLanne had a kid brother, it would be this guy.

At 5-foot-9, 150 pounds, Commins is built as solidly as when he played football in the Bay Area back before joining the Marines during World War II. His buzz cut betrays no hint of gray, though his pencil-thin mustache is pure white.

Commins' metacarpal-crunching handshake, alone, attests to his enduring strength. But there also are mementos from his Masters weightlifting days as a regional gold medalist in the Senior Olympics. (Ten years on, he still holds the 70-74 age group record for the snatch and clean-and-jerk in the Pacific Weightlifting Association.) His ramrod-straight posture is that of a man at least 20 years younger.

He has also climbed Mount Whitney four times, albeit as a younger man, and two years ago beat prostate cancer, saying the radiation therapy and recovery "felt like just a bad cold" to him.

"That's because I've stayed in shape," he says. "Some mornings, I don't feel like working out. But if I don't, I tell myself I won't be in as good of shape to do what I want to do as I get older."

And what does Commins want to do?

Pretty much everything.