Age is nothing but a number, and Sam ‘Sonny’ Bryant, Jr. won’t let you forget that ever again. Sonny is a champion bodybuilder from Georgia at 70 years of age, and has no intention of stopping any time soon. “People ask me when I’m going to retire. I say “never”. More people die retired than people do working. I love to work, I love to work out. I’ve been doing this for 27 years,” Sam said.
Sonny works the overnight shift at Kimberly-Clark as a fork lift driver. If his work schedule isn’t enough to convince you that he has incomparable work ethic, maybe knowing that he works out twice a day to maintain his physique will. Twice a day. 
When his second marriage fell apart at the age of 44, Sonny started lifting weights to let off steam. Just 11 months into his training that began with absolutely no knowledge about how to properly muscle train he entered his first competition in Columbus, Georgia. 
Yet again Sonny found himself in unfamiliar territory during his first bodybuilding competition. He showed up in red, white, and blue Speedo. He observed the other competitors in order to learn how to hold a pose for the judges. He didn’t know how to do that, either. With no experience and a question mark in aptitude, Sonny he came third in the novice competition and fourth in the master competition. Not bad at all. 
“I was just like a crack addict – I was hooked,’ he told Augusta.Chronicle.com. ‘I had two trophies, never having won anything before. People say it’s age that makes you old, but I believe it’s your state of mind that makes you old. Age is just a number,” he told AugustaChronicle.com. “It gives most people a reason to be lazy and not do anything. I meet a lot of people who say, “wait til I get to that age”. Then I tell them how old I am and they are embarrassed. And I tell them that to make a point, it’s inactivity and their state of mind that makes them old.”
Wondering what he eats to stay healthy? You’ll probably be jealous to know that when Sonny gets off of work at 6 a.m. he goes to Waffle House and has a dry waffle or scrambled eggs with well-done bacon. He then heads straight for Gold’s Gym an hour later.
To see Sonny’s full interview with the Augusta Chronicle, check out the video below:
CREDITS: Daily Mail. Original video courtesy of The Augusta Chronicle.
