'I want everybody to enjoy older age and feel vibrant'

At 62, gran-of-three Jacqueline Hooton is on a mission to challenge perceptions about age and exercise. And she is, as she rightly says, walking the talk. Just last year she set her personal best of deadlifting 112.5kg (more than 17 stone), despite living with osteoarthritis and having had a series of shoulder surgeries.

- BY MARGARET HUSSEY

Now she has written Strong - a book filled with exercises and advice for anyone wishing to kickstart their fitness journey.

Jacqueline, who is a personal trainer with more than 500,000 followers on her Her Garden Gym Instagram account, insists age shouldn't be a barrier to exercising.

"I want everybody to enjoy older age and feel vibrant in their 50s, 60s and beyond. We don't want fitness to feel exclusive, to feel you've got to have a perfect body. It's unrealistic," she says.

REPRESENTATION

"A lot of the representation we see of fitness is younger people exercising and then that sends a message 'Oh maybe I'm too old to do this'. We need to see people who are exercising from a seated position, who may have mobility problems, or people wearing shorts in their 70s. Representation matters. When we see it, we can be it."

Jacqueline, who is a mother of five, says like most people, her school days put her off fitness, where PE was "a torture". "It's something I have heard from many clients that it didn't give them a love of being active. It was always about who were the best people for the team."

Although a keen cyclist and walker, after she had her first child Tobias in 1989, aged 26, she felt a huge sense of responsibility.

"It was that realisation that 'Gosh, his survival depends on me. The only way I can do that is if I am fit and healthy."

She turned to Jane Fonda's Workout video to get motivated and give her day structure.