Gym bunny Dick Van Dyke reveals his secrets to staying healthy at 99 years old
Dick Van Dyke has revealed his tips for staying healthy at the grand old age of 99 years old.
The Chitty Chitty Bang Bang actor doesn’t stop at strolls – nope, he’s into core exercises and is a bit of a gym bunny, too.
Speaking on Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast with hosts Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, Dick revealed his secrets to staying healthy approaching 100 – and it’s the gym, three times a week.
He explained: ‘When you think… I go back to 1925, I’m almost 100. This is insane. I’m going to have a big party.
‘Somebody said, “to what do you attribute your age and physical condition? and I said, “I’ve always exercised.”
‘Three days a week, we go to the gym, still. Three days a week.’
Podcast host Ted recalled seeing Dick at a Malibu gym and said: ‘If I got there early enough I would see you literally work out on some weight machine.
‘Then, almost like you were doing circuit training, you would not walk to the next machine, but dance.
‘You literally danced to the next machine and I watched that for a couple of weeks.’
Dick’s wife Arlene Silver, who joined him on the podcast, added: ‘He still does that!’
It’s not the first time Dick has told all about his gym routine, as he actually demonstrated a number of ab workouts on CBS This Morning in 2021.
He told other people watching the years tick by to keep on going, as he’s still ‘singing and dancing’ – just like his character in the beloved 1968 musical.
The Mary Poppins actor’s words come after he was force evacuated from his home early in December as the Franklin Fires struck Malibu – the blaze that came weeks before the recent LA fires.
Giving updates as the fire ripped and died down again, Dick revealed he and Arlene left unharmed, and returned to find their home thankfully fully intact.
But it was a dramatic time for the veteran actor, who revealed he had to crawl to his car in his escape.
In an interview on the Today Show Dick recalled his neighbours rushing to his rescue after he ‘couldn’t get up’.
‘It was coming from over the hill, you could see it,’ he told the host. ‘And oh my God, and we got out of here.
‘I was trying to crawl to the car, I had exhausted myself, I couldn’t get up.
‘Three neighbors came and carried me out, they came back and put out a little fire in the guest house, and saved me.’
Dick’s career has spanned more than seven decades and earned him an array of awards including four Emmys, a Tony for Bye Bye Birdie and a Grammy for the Mary Poppins soundtrack.
He was inducted into the Television Hall Of Fame in 1995 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Gym bunny Dick Van Dyke reveals his secrets to staying healthy at 99 years old