“Age is just a number” – this line is not as simple as it looks. Sure, Tom Brady won the Super Bowl when he was 43, and you think age may be just an excuse. Paralympics swimmer Dara Torres competed in the Olympics till she was 41. We have many more unbelievable examples that will make you question if we have been seeing it all wrong. Well, there’s a method to every madness, and one gymnastics star is trying to break the myth.

This former Olympian uses her local gym setting to change the mindset we have about sports. Along the way, she is asking adults, who had given up sports, to reignite their passion and explore their athletic hobbies scientifically. She believes sports is not just for the young.

Former gymnast inspiring adults to take up gymnastics for a better life

Chelsie Memmel is 36. Yet, she hasn’t been able to walk away from the gymnastics equipment. When she retired in 2012, she must have thought that was the end. At least her fans thought so. But she wanted to return. In 2019, she was convinced she needed to come back to gymnastics. And she returned as a professional gymnast to compete at the US Classic. It must have been an empowering moment for the 2008 Olympics silver medalist. But Memmel thinks older people can easily stay involved in gymnastics as long as they understand how it works. Talking to CBS58 on February 16, she said, “Our bodies can still do hard and amazing things, it just takes longer to warm up.”

Her point is smart work: “Smart about how you train, how you take care of your body, how you’re recovering.” Memmel is implying an older physique may not be as efficient as a younger one, but that doesn’t mean one has to give up gymnastics. As per the International Gymnastics Hall of Famer, “I think we are finally learning that if you stay consistent with your workouts and doing some of these things and taking longer to warm up and make sure your body is ready, that you can continue to do hard things.”

In fact, the reasoning struck her when she was slowly returning from retirement: “I was working out a lot and then I was just kind of like I feel good, why don’t I just start flipping a little bit more and then it just kind of snow balled.” This gave her the idea that she could help others like her to come back into sports or even start fresh. From there came her adult gymnastics facility in New Berlin. And it has been an amazing success so far.

Her gymnastics program was not just to prove a point but also to give people an outlet where they could work out and have some fun. “One of the biggest reasons I do the class is to offer to have that different outlet, to have a fun, more creative outlet way of working out and moving your body. I see the joy when people take my class because it is fun,” she said.

In this empowering venture, Memmel has found voices of support from fellow gymnasts. Debbie Daemmrich is bringing gymnastics back into her life at the age of 40. Talking about how she is feeling about it, she says, “It’s definitely harder. There’s a lot more aches and pains, but it has been absolutely great.” Another former gymnast Allison Joers feels surprised by what she got to learn: “It’s also kind of amazing to see what our bodies can still do when you push them and work hard towards something. I feel stronger now than when I was in it when I was 15.”

With all her resources, Chelsie Memmel is making her contribution to spreading the scientific message in society about the workings of our body and how we can undo the wrong notions prevalent in society. Athletes have been proving her right since time immemorial, and we got to see that in 2024 too.

Gymnasts have been proving Chelsie Memmel right in the past and the present

Do you know who is the oldest athlete in the history of the Olympics? His name is Oscar Swahn. But more importantly, how old was he when he participated in the Olympic Games? Any guesses? He was 72 years and 279 days old when he won a gold medal at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics. What about age-defying gymnasts? Oksana Chusovitina from Uzbekistan became the oldest female gymnast to compete in the Olympics, featuring in the Tokyo Olympics at the age of 46. Unbelievable, isn’t it?

Moreover, the 49-year-old is still going strong and intends to compete in the vault and balance beam events of the Cottbus World Cup in 2025. Well, she will definitely have support from Chelsie Memmel. Shifting to the men’s category, Masao Takemoto of Japan is one of the oldest gymnasts to feature in the Olympics. He was 41 years old when he participated in the 1960 Olympics. Even in recent times, the Tokyo Olympics saw Marian Dragulescu of Romania take part in the vault competition at the age of 40.

And what about the 2024 Paris Olympics? Well, unfortunately, Oksana Chusovitina couldn’t participate in what would have been her 9th Olympic Games. But there was Davtyan Vahagn. The 35-year-old Armenian was the oldest male gymnast in the 2024 edition. For these history-makers, age is like a difficulty level. All they have to do is level up to overcome the challenge.