Bob Is A Regular Guy. Until He's Not.

Bob Wittig, 92, at his gym in Carmel, Indiana. He has worked out three days a week for 31 years.

By Ray Glier

There is nothing and everything extraordinary about Bob Wittig, 92.

He was not a brilliant athlete in high school in Peru, Indiana or at Purdue University, but Bob sure seemed athletic when he did a leg press layered with 500 pounds of weights at 80 years old.

He is a typically squared away guy from the Midwest, no one that would stand out in a crowd. Except Wittig can draw a crowd in his fitness center for his 60-90 minute full-body workouts, which he has done three times a week….for 31 consecutive years.

Bob would look like any older guy on any street corner, but put him behind a lawnmower and watch him go like a 40-year old. He push-mowed almost a half-acre last Monday…at 92.

“I'm not feeble by any stretch of imagination,” Wittig said. He has six kids and they have to occasionally dampen his enthusiasm, like when he went over the handle bars of a racing bike at 87 and his children commanded he retire, or get training wheels.

Just look at this picture below. That is Bob in the plank position. That is his wife of almost 70 years, Marty, 89, on top of him with her own plank. Marty, by the way, walks 10,000 steps a day.

This is the deal with Wittig. He won the gene raffle. His mother died at 99. His father died at 94. Bob amplified that gene prize with his workouts. He followed one of the first laws of finance and applied it to fitness: you have to invest to get a return. 

It was a deliberate and conscious effort. He didn’t rely on hand-me-down cells. Bob spun his own fate. That’s why I’m making him a role model today. 

Wittig, who is known as Geezer Jock Bob at the Monon Community Center in Carmel, Indiana, is just a guy, but he is a guy with discipline in his core.

31 years. 3 times a week. Legs, shoulders, chest, head-to-toe. It is not an eccentric workout. It’s just habit that came from discipline.

“The workouts came after I retired from General Motors,” Wittig said. “If there's one thing I am, it's disciplined, and when I get into something and I see the benefit of it, it's going to stay. It's going to be a keeper.”

There is a more important message from Bob.

“You can start anytime, and you can you can surprise yourself,” he said. 

I have written before in Geezer Jock that we all need to contribute to our health bank so that we have it when calamity hits. This week is five years since my first symptoms of ALS and I am still walking and driving. The hours and hours of yard work—pushing a mower like Bob—and basketball are serving me.

Bob knows this. Late in 2020, Wittig got Covid. He was 86. He fought it off. Bob is certain his strong health got him through.

“Plenty of people my age didn’t survive when they got Covid,” he said.

Wittig has no desire to be immortal, like the Silicon Valley tech bros. He simply wants to play ball with his children and their children’s children. Bob has a great grandchild that is 10 and he wants to be able to hold his own in the boy’s games.

“I read a lot about longevity, and longevity isn't about just living long, it's about having good health when you're living long,” Bob said. “I want to be able to work out with my kids, my grandkids, and my great grandkids.”

Wittig was 61 when he started lifting routine. He would take 270-pound dumbbells and do 12-15 repetitions. Then he started doing his weight times two. Bob, who is 5-foot-6, 151 pounds, quit that at 78 because “as I got older the weights got heavier.”

William James, considered the Father of American Psychology, restated what Aristotle first said, “We are what we do.” James frequently talked about the benefits of habits in everyday life.

This quote below from James captures Geezer Jock Bob and everything extraordinary about his desire for better health. Bob's workout habit is pure empowerment.

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."