Dick Van Dyke, 99, Works Out Like a Man Half His Age
This regimen puts the rest of us to shame.
NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
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Dick Van Dyke will turn 100 years old on December 13, but the television legend has no plans to slow down.
One secret behind his youthful energy? He never skips a workout. In an excerpt of his new book 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life, published in The Times, the Tony-, Emmy-, and Grammy-winning star revealed his extensive routine at age 99.
Putting many millennials and Gen-Xers to shame with his dedication to wellness, Van Dyke writes that he visits the gym three times a week. “If I miss too many gym days, I really can feel it—a stiffness creeping in here and there,” he writes, adding, “If I let that set in, well, God help me.”
His gym routine includes a rotation of machines, typically kicking off with the sit-up machine. After ab work, Van Dyke hits several fitness machines that target leg muscles, because “my legs are two of my most cherished possessions.” He then moves to the upper body.
Dick Van Dyke on the CBS special, 'Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic,' in 2023.
Monty Brinton/CBS via Getty Images
Even while moving between exercise apparatuses, Van Dyke keeps up the sweat. “The secret ingredient is the music,” he writes, adding that he holds no breaks between machines but dances his way from one workout to the next. “And if I’m really feeling it, I’m no quiet warbler; I’m a Broadway belter.”
If Van Dyke needs extra motivation, he has a mental list of proverbial carrots to dangle before his own eyes, including a “huge smoothie and/or frothy caffeine treat afterwards; full-body tingly exhilaration; sharper mind; sense of accomplishment to bask in; naptime, well earned; limber dancing in the days ahead.”
Dick Van Dyke poses alongside co-star Mary Tyler Moore at the Emmys in 1966. 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' won 15 Emmys during its run from 1961 to 1966.
Bettmann Archive
The dancing doesn’t end at the gym. Van Dyke and his wife, Arlene Silver, 54, love to dance around their house. “If it’s a good day, which it almost always is in our house, we’ll break into a little swaying and soft-shoe right there,” he wrote.
Dick Van Dyke with wife Arlene Silver at the 51st annual Daytime Emmys Awards in 2024.
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images
He credited a portion of his well-being to his relationship with Silver, whom he first met when she was a makeup artist at the 2006 SAG Awards. “Without question,” he writes, “our ongoing romance is the most important reason I have not withered away into a hermetic grouch.”
Dick Van Dyke kisses his wife, Arlene Silver, on the cheek at the 2018 premiere of Disney's 'Mary Poppins Returns' in Los Angeles.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
During his career, Van Dyke has played several characters far older than himself, such as Mr. Dawes Sr. in the 1964 film Mary Poppins. Over 50 years later, he appeared in the film’s 2018 sequel, Mary Poppins Returns.
Although Van Dyke now finds some similarities to those earlier screen personas, noting that he has trouble with his feet, eyesight, and hearing, he writes that the differences are much greater: “The superficial stuff, the physical decay, is about the only thing I share with the old guys I played way back when. Thank God, on the inside, I am as different from them as I could get.”