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Dick Van Dyke, 100, Hangs Upside Down to Keep His Body Moving

The actor goes to the gym three times a week

Donna Freydkin,

AARP

Published September 01, 2026

Dick Van Dyke, with an emphatically happy expression, wearing a suit and holding a wooden cane with a carved parrot head on the handle

Dick Van Dyke, seen here in 2024, goes to the gym three times per week and does yoga to stay fit. He is 100.

Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

Key takeaways

Dick Van Dyke posted a video showing himself using an inversion table at 100 with the message “#keepmoving.”
He goes to the gym three times a week.
Research has linked regular exercise and stretching with such benefits as strength, mobility and walking performance in older adults.

At 100, Dick Van Dyke is hanging nearly upside down to work out. The actor posted an Instagram video of himself on Aug. 28 using an inversion table. His caption was brief: “#DVD100 1/2 workout inversion table #keepmoving.”

Van Dyke became a household name with TV’s The Dick Van Dyke Show, which ran from 1961 to 1966, then brought his singing, dancing and physical comedy skills to the films Mary Poppins in 1964 and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968. He later starred in the TV series Diagnosis Murder, from 1993 to 2001, and returned to the big screen for Mary Poppins Returns in 2018.

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He has been talking about his exercise routine for years. In the Jan. 22, 2025, episode of the podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name, he told Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen that regular workouts have long been part of his life. The conversation with Van Dyke and his wife, Arlene Silver, was recorded in 2024.

“I’ve always exercised three days a week. We go to the gym still three days a week, and I think that’s it, why I’m not stove up like my equals,” Van Dyke said.

Asked what he does at the gym, Van Dyke said, “Well, I get down and do a lot of stretching and yoga-type things, sit-ups.”

That routine was still in place as Van Dyke closed in on 100. In November 2025, he sat down with the Today show’s Al Roker while promoting his book, 100 Rules for Living to 100: An Optimist’s Guide to a Happy Life. Asked what people most wanted to know as his birthday approached, Van Dyke joked, “Why are you still walking around is one.”

In a 2023 CBS News Sunday Morning interview filmed just after his 98th birthday, Van Dyke said, “My wife, God bless her, makes sure that I go to the gym three days a week and do a full workout.”

If, like Van Dyke, you are intrigued by inversion tables, the Cleveland Clinic says suspending yourself upside down can temporarily take pressure off the nerves in your lower back and give the disks between your vertebrae more room to relax. However, research on the table’s benefits is mixed.

For older adults, a mix of regular movement matters. AARP recommends strength training, aerobic exercise, balance work and flexibility rather than relying on a single type of exercise. Peter Ronai, an exercise physiologist, told AARP that one form of exercise “will not address all of the areas of deficit” that can develop with age.

Keep moving

Want to keep moving like Dick Van Dyke? Explore AARP’s Staying Fit hub for short workouts, balance exercises, strength training, yoga and walking routines you can do at your own pace.

Stretching can help with everyday movements too. AARP notes that flexibility and range of motion make it easier to do things such as putting on socks, fastening a seat belt and turning your head. UCLA Health says that flexibility tends to decrease with age and that stretching can help preserve your range of motion.

Stretching may help with something even more basic: walking. A 2025 review in Geriatric Nursing looked at 29 clinical trials and found that stretching programs improved walking performance, including gait speed.

The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Donna Freydkin has spent 10-plus years interviewing celebrities for major publications, and has written for a variety of outlets such as USA Today, Allure, Yahoo! and CNN covering topics such as films, family and favorite meals.