How the Super Age Games’ Biggest Team Is Preparing

Rebellion Body’s team is 44 members strong. At 75, one member says she’s learning new tricks to age better than ever.

When Brittney Levine imagines stepping into the New York Armory Track at the Super Age Games, it’s all in slow motion.

“I see the movie montage of us walking in, our matching shirts on,” she says. “It’s like tunnel vision. Cheering each other on. Seeing people do better than they think they’ll do, and the high fives and hugs.”

The people in Levine’s mental montage are members of the largest team currently registered for the Super Age Games, currently 44 athletes strong. The group is composed of trainers and team members and from Rebellion Body, a coaching business and fitness app created by Founding Athlete Denise Kirtley that’s helping hundreds of women get stronger as they age. 

The team’s coaches, including 38-year-old Levine, are having monthly group calls with their members, providing training programs targeted to the Games’ key biomarkers. They’re opening the floor for members to talk about their excitement, and even their apprehensions, about the November event.

“In the community space… it’s been really exciting to see women ready to push themselves and jump in and be scared and do it anyway — to be encouraged that we’re doing it together,” Levine says. “And the reality is, I’m scared, too!”

What’s making the Games a little scary, but a lot exciting, for Rebellion team members is that they’re changing how they’re training to tackle it together.

From the Extremes Of Cardio and Strength To a More Balanced Approach

Jane and Greg Kenny had already overhauled their exercise routine over the past few years. The Philadelphia couple — Jane’s now 75, Greg’s 69 — had previously been avid triathletes, training and racing together across the country.

Triathlon training means lots and lots (and lots and lots) of cardio exercise. But after a dozen years of tri-training with some European bike trips sprinkled in, the pair started focusing on functional movement, hoping to keep having fun with their three children and five grandchildren for decades to come.

“We were reading a lot about functional training, just living well and thinking about how you stay strong and viable,” Jane says. It was from that place that the pair started strength training[strength tray-ning]nounResistance-based exercise to build muscle and support healthy aging.Learn MoreClose. 

The Kennys started with bodyweight exercises in their basement, and began amassing a small army of dumbbells as they progressed. They set goals for lifting those dumbbells that they pushed for together: Jane wanted to complete her first pull-up, and Greg wanted to be able to chin the bar with ease. Just as they had in their triathlon days, the couple trained together, inspiring one another to work harder and having fun along the way.

“She is my motivation,” Greg says of Jane. “She doesn’t like me saying that. But I could happily write off a workout, and she won’t. So if she’s going, well, I guess I’m going too.”

One thing that’s kept Jane going, she says, is being part of Rebellion Body. She joined the company as one of its first coaching clients. And as the couple progressed from their basement to a gym, she and Greg saw results: He blew through his pull-up goal, hopping on the bar one day after ignoring the exercise and knocking out 10 reps with ease. Meanwhile, Jane got a surprise burst of validation in the bathroom mirror one morning: “One day I was blow drying my hair, and I had my arms up, and I was like, holy… “ she says. “I didn’t expect muscles. I didn’t know I was going to see my body change.”

It’s no surprise that the couple that trained together got strong together: Research studies have found that social support is one of the most important factors in being consistent with exercise over time.

So when they signed up for Rebellion’s Super Age Games team, they — of course — did it together. And doing so changed their training again: Rebellion is providing to its Games team members with weekly workouts focused on basics like strength, but also on balance, agility, mobilitymoh-bil-i-tee]nounThe ability to move freely and easily through a full range of motion.Learn MoreClose, and VO2 Max[vee-oh-too maks]nounA measurement of how much oxygen your body can use during exercise.Learn MoreClose. The latter is an aging biomarker that even Rebellion founder Kirtley said had fallen off her radar.

“We had pivoted from all endurance and aerobic training [as triathletes] to all strength training,” Greg says. “When I looked at the agenda for the Super Age Games, I saw a balance that I had become aware was missing.”

The change to this more balanced training approach has already paid dividends, Jane says. This weekend, she needed to get out of a beach chair that was really low to the sand, and could do so with minimal use of her hands, a key marker of health.

For Levine, the shift toward more holistic training is a welcome one. The Rebellion coach’s mother suffers from Alzheimer’s, a condition that can in many cases be fended off with exercise. And her experience of watching her mother suffer has also inspired Levine as she coaches clients.

“I think I have a different passion of really wanting to make sure people understand that they can control the outcome to the best of their ability,” she says. “I wish my mom had put herself first… I use that to empower women to take charge of their health now. Because I see what happens. I see what’s coming if you don’t.”

Aging Better With a Focus On Fun

For the Kennys, part of the movie montage they’re envisioning is epic because of the Super Age Games’ setting.

“The Armory has a certain mystique in the track and field world,” Greg says. “So the idea that we’re doing an event there at 70… that’s pretty cool.”

For Jane, who grew up near New York City, it’s held that magic all her life: “To be on the floor at the New York City Armory, it’s the only way I’d ever get there!”

They’ll take to that track together, as they do with all their athletic endeavors. But they’ll have new friends from Rebellion, too: Jane has already been on hikes with other trainees from Rebellion Body. And she’s excited to meet not just her fellow teammates, but also other fitness-focused folks at the Games.

“It’s exciting to be around people who want to talk about this stuff and have that same feeling about wanting to preserve their viability,” Jane says. “We know, for most Americans, their last 10 years are pretty dismal. People just lose so much, and it’s not fun anymore. We want to continue to have fun as we age.”

The fact that they’ll work toward their goals side by side is the icing on the cake: “It’s always been a great journey for us, because we’ve always gotten interested in things and done them together.”

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