With rock-hard pecks and six-pack abs that has men half his age, turning green and women of all ages drooling, 70-year-old Sam "Sonny" Bryant from Georgia is an inspiration to many a procrastinators.
His biceps are rock-solid and his legs are like logs of oak; but he has no pill to thank for them. Sam Bryant is a religious body builder with an addiction to working out and he has no plans to set the weights down any time soon.
"People ask me when I'm gonna retire. More people die retired than people do working. I say never... I love to work, I love to work out," Bryant says during one of his work-out sessions.
Bryant was not keen on body building from a young age. Around the age of 44, when his marriage started to fall apart, he found body building to the perfect stress buster. Even with no knowledge of lifting weights, he kept up the habit for 11 months, when he was approached by a man who put forth the idea of taking part in a body building competition.
Bryant recollects that he was so out-of place, when he worn the wrong outfit- a red, white and blue Speedo – and says he had no idea how to pose. "The judge called out for a pose, and I had to see what everybody else was doing," he said.
However, against the odds, he came third in the novice competition and fourth in the master competition. The greatest benefit of taking part was that the body building bug bit him and working out became an addiction for him.
A former army man, Bryant reiterates that he cannot sit idle and has a message for all couch potatoes out there, "A lot of young guys, they go home, sit around, watch TV and do nothing - I've seen a lot of young guys who are older than me... I want people to recognise what I'm doing and realise that it can be done."
Bryant says that "many people fall victim to the idea that age makes people old, but he says it's a state of mind that makes you old. If your subconscious believes you are old, then you will start feeling old."
And true to his word, along with his body building career that has won him more titles and trophies that he can keep track of, Bryant also works a graveyard shift at personal-care emporium Kimberly-Clark as a forklift driver.
