Ernestine was 56 years old, worked as a school secretary in Baltimore, and had never set foot in a gym.
It all started with something as simple as trying on a swimsuit alongside her sister Mildred. Neither of them was happy with what they saw in the mirror, so they decided to train together. But Mildred died of a brain aneurysm before seeing the results, and Ernestine had to decide whether to continue on her own.
She continued. She competed for the first time in 2007, eventually running 130 kilometers per week, and in 2010, in Rome, the Guinness Book of World Records officially named her the world’s oldest competitive bodybuilder. She was 74 years old and had defined abs that many 20-year-olds can’t achieve. Today, at 90, she still trains.