10 min readWhen many people think of women over 50, they imagine slowing down, covering up, fading into the background. But across gyms—and even onstage—a whole new and unexpected generation is lifting, flexing, and reshaping what it means to age. And yes, sometimes that means showing off muscles in a bikini that would make their 20-year-old selves gape in envy…or in awe.
It’s a world that used to feel off-limits for women past a certain point. “Women in menopause or older get so much messaging: ‘Who cares about your body? You’re done having babies, you’re past your prime, your body isn’t worth attention,’ ” says Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, PhD, author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession. Female bodybuilders, especially those of a more mature age, “are saying no to that,” she says.
Marjorie Thrash, the director of operations for the Organization of Competitive Bodybuilding (OCB), says that in recent years, she’s seen more women over 50 than ever before enter OCB contests for the first time. (The events include amateur bodybuilding and figure competitions; all celebrate strength and muscular development, but bodybuilding emphasizes maximum muscle size and definition, while figure contests also focus on a symmetrical, aesthetically polished physique.) “I encounter many women who have dedicated years to their careers and families and, during that time, neglected their health. For them, the sport becomes a long-awaited self-improvement project,” she says.
While thinness has long dominated Western cultural ideals, muscularity is gaining respect, Dr. Petrzela says. Women in their 50s and 60s today are arguably the first generation who do not automatically accept the stereotype that aging means slowing down. “Women now expect to be physically active well into old age,” she says.
To be clear, this is about more than being strong. It’s about looking strong—and not being ashamed of that goal. “To some, it may seem like a vanity project, but it is so much bigger than that,” Thrash says. “Women realize that if they can accomplish this, they can accomplish so many other things.”
These competitors—some of whom didn’t pick up their first dumbbell until late in adulthood—are proof that strength and self-assurance only get better with age.
In the months before, “you eat a lot—it’s quite astonishing,” Iris Davis says. Her diet involves 8 to 10 meals per day, one every two hours, with 40 percent being protein.
The Record Holder Who Lifted Her Way Through Grief
Iris Davis isn’t being dramatic when she says that bodybuilding saved her life. “I suffer terrible depression to this very day and have been hospitalized a few times because of it,” the 82-year-old says. But when she’s lifting weights, her “neural pathways open up,” leaving her energized.
Davis grew up in Ireland and married at 17. When she was 18, her infant son died, and by the time she was 22, her husband had also passed away. The losses left her paralyzed with grief. After spending countless days in bed, she decided to go outside for a walk as a way to prevent herself from spending the entire day crying inside. “Every day, I would walk for hours. That was my solace. And one day, I walked right into a gym,” says Davis, who now lives in South Carolina.
The 1960s gym was a far cry from today’s modern facilities boasting fancy equipment, saunas and cold plunges, and locker rooms. “It was a gym covered in straw, full of men with big bellies, grunting and lifting weights,” Davis says. She started lifting too, copying what she saw the men doing. “That was 62 years ago, and I haven’t stopped,” she says.
But it wasn’t until her 50s that Davis discovered competitive bodybuilding. While living in Florida, she was approached at the gym by a man seeking a partner for an upcoming competition. “I was like, ‘Are you sure you want me?’ ” Davis says. Six months later, she took the stage and placed second.
In the decades since, Davis has built an extraordinary career. She has 15 National Physique Committee (NPC) first-place wins and has received a Pioneer Award from the Women’s World Leadership Congress, which recognizes women who have broken new ground, challenged the status quo, and demonstrated exceptional leadership. She also once held the Guinness World Record for the oldest professional female bodybuilder. It’s these moments—not the grief-struck days in Ireland—that Davis chooses to focus on, and she says they are the most important parts of her life.
Bodybuilding has also kept her feeling young. “Bodybuilding will keep you youthful, your brain active, and make you stay involved in things,” she says. And while the competitions are fun checkpoints, it’s the daily training, the routine of it all, and the lifestyle that have continued to help her mental health and keep her going.
Davis eventually opened her own gym, training women 50 and older alongside younger athletes. “I’m training 16-year-olds, and they’re thrilled,” she says. And she’s just as thrilled herself. “In my younger years, saying my favorite hobby was going to the gym was not popular. But it brings me so much happiness. And it keeps me healthy too.”
A golden nutrition rule for Marianne Dait: meal prep. She isn’t shy about letting loved ones know she’ll bring her own food. “My friends know that it’s my lifestyle.”
The Doctor Who Actually Practices What She Preaches
Marianne Dait, DO, is the first to admit she started going to the gym because she “wanted to look good at the beach.” The family practice physician, who lives in Virginia, was about to turn 50, and she really wanted to transform her body from soft to sculpted.
To make it happen, Dait began training with a trainer. As her muscles grew bigger and more visible, he suggested she enter a bodybuilding competition. “I had no idea what he was talking about,” Dait recalls. Still, she was curious, so she decided to go check out a contest firsthand. When she saw the competitors pose onstage in their bikinis, she had two thoughts: I can’t look like that, and I’m not wearing that. “Just think about it,” her trainer urged.
In the months that followed, Dait kept the idea of competing in the back of her mind. Seeing the dramatic changes in her own body—and realizing she had built the strength and definition most competitors spent years trying to achieve—sparked a curiosity she hadn’t expected. Three months later, she said the two words her coach was waiting for: “I’m in.”
Dait was competing against women younger than she was, but she won first place in several categories. Two weeks later, she entered another competition and won again. “I didn’t think I could transform my body, but I did—six-pack and all,” she says.
This type of metamorphosis takes consistent dedication. “When I meet up with my friends, they know I’m going to bring my own food to eat,” Dait says. She goes to bed at 7 p.m. so she can get enough sleep before waking up at 3:30 a.m. in order to have time to do her prayers and then train, “because I start seeing patients at 7 a.m.,” she says.
Outside of the bodybuilding community, the biggest misconception she faces is that people assume she’s taking steroids. “It’s all natural,” Dait says. “Before every competition, we are drug tested and take a lie detector test.”
Part of her motivation is that she has seen what happens when health isn’t prioritized. As a doctor, she witnesses firsthand the toll that being sedentary can take on health, and Dait likes being an example to her patients, showing them that aging can mean getting stronger, not weaker.
“Bodybuilding has helped me in my everyday life and my practice,” she says. “It has helped me gain confidence and to encourage people that anyone can transform their body at any age. Age is not a limiting factor. We just need to know how to train smarter.”
Lift to live longer: You can make significant strength gains even in your 60s, 70s, and 80s, research proves. A study of adults ages 65 to 75, as well as those over 85, found that just 12 weeks of resistance training increased both strength and muscle size in both age groups.
“Evidence shows it’s never too late to improve strength, mobility, and balance,” says Gabrielle Lyon, DO, founder of the Institute for Muscle-Centric Medicine and author of The Forever Strong Playbook. “As people get stronger, their bones improve, their balance improves—and the foundation is really that musculature of strength,” she says. (That muscle foundation is also what makes these women so competitive onstage.)
Want to live to triple digits—and actually enjoy it? “The better your muscle quality, the greater your survivability,” Dr. Lyon notes, adding that those who have the most muscle strength later in life “typically have the greatest chance of reaching 100.”
While lifting is nonnegotiable, Wendy Ida has added tai chi to her routine, calling it “great healing” for stress and anxiety.
The Mom Who Proved She’s Stronger Than Her Past
There was a time in her life when Wendy Ida didn’t think she’d live to see 40. Now, at 73, she’s stronger than ever.
Ida married at 19 and spent more than a decade in an abusive relationship before leaving with her two children and starting over in California with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. By the time life began to stabilize, she had gained 80 pounds and felt disconnected from her physical being. “My life had been an emotional roller coaster,” she says. “The weight gain started after the birth of my kids, who are 11 months apart, and I just wasn’t aware of my body or mind. I had so many other problems to deal with.”
Once her kids were settled into a good routine, Ida, in her 30s at this point, began working out for the first time, jogging on the treadmill and doing ab exercises—her first act of self-care in as long as she could remember. But she still felt scared all the time, as if “life could fall apart at any second,” she says.
That feeling changed when, at 43, she started working with a trainer and lifting weights. “Seeing my body change was the first time I felt like I owned my body,” Ida says. In less than two years, she lost the extra weight, all 80 pounds of it. For the first time, she felt good about herself.
In her mid-50s, she decided to enter her first bodybuilding competition after her trainer brought it up. “A colleague of mine competed in one two years before that, and I just thought, Wow, that’s a whole other level of getting in shape,” Ida recalls. Once her trainer suggested it, though, she decided to go for it, craving something that challenged her beyond her workout routine.
She still vividly remembers her first time taking the stage. She entered three categories, including one for women 18 and older. “When they said my age, the announcer said he couldn’t believe it. He made a big deal about it—in a good way. It was really a magical experience,” she says. Ida won second place in the 18-and-up category and first in the 45-and-up group. She was hooked.
Ida says her outer strength is a reflection of her inner fortitude. “My body became a symbol of having the power to change things,” she says. She also simply loved the challenge: “If I commit, I’m going to do it right.” She thrives on the discipline of following a meal plan and committing to a training schedule. “When I work out, I visualize myself on the stage winning,” she says. “That’s what keeps me motivated.” And when she looks in the mirror now, Ida sees someone who beat the odds. “My body changed, my mind changed, and I feel like I can do anything.”
Lesley Maxwell trains four or more times a week. A fave move of hers? Hanging knee raises with a weight between her feet. “Now I’ve got, like, an eight-pack.”
The Ageless Athlete Who Treats Her Body as an Experiment
Lesley Maxwell is refusing to age the way others do. In fact, very few people even know how old she is because she usually doesn’t share her exact age (she’s in her 60s). “Being mysterious about how old I am makes me feel ageless. I never celebrate my birthday for that reason,” she says.
The mom of three and grandmother admits that she wasn’t always on a strength and longevity trajectory. Her weight yo-yoed from the age of 18, and she never stuck to consistent movement or a healthy approach to nutrition, especially when her kids were younger. When she was 49, she was hospitalized with asthma and pneumonia and found herself watching a 60 Minutes segment on bodybuilding competitions. “I saw these strong women who looked glamorous because they had bikinis on, and I thought, Wow, that’s my thing!” she says.With newfound motivation, upon leaving the hospital, “I went to the gym the next week and started training.”
Bodybuilding felt like magic—a feeling she didn’t get from running, step aerobics, or other forms of exercise she’d dabbled with in the past. “Being onstage is a surge of nerves, excitement, and raw emotion. My heart is racing, the lights are intense, and I feel completely exposed both physically and emotionally,” she says.
Since her first go, she’s won more than 30 bodybuilding titles, and she’s still competing, with her next event this September. While other people may view her rigid diet and exercise schedule as a sacrifice, Maxwell doesn’t see it that way at all. “To me, it’s a sacrifice to not do it,” she says. “It’s like asking a priest if praying is a sacrifice, or someone who meditates if meditating is a sacrifice. It’s what keeps me together, mentally and physically.”
Today, Maxwell lives in Melbourne, Australia, and works as a personal trainer. She’s witnessed many of her neighbors become weaker and more fragile with age. “[I] refuse to become fragile just because a number says I should. That’s my mindset,” she says. In fact, she likes to see herself as her own human experiment. She continues to think about how she wants to transform her body, and then she makes it happen.
To her, bodybuilding is about bucking the stereotypes that many people associate with aging. “I started noticing how often women accept negative changes in their bodies and immediately blame it on age. Like it’s something we’re supposed to surrender to. I remember thinking, What if that’s not the full story?” she says. For her, it’s not. Maxwell summed up how she feels in three words: “Stronger than ever.”
