This 70-year-old Chinese bodybuilder has changed the perception of what a pensioner should look like.

Yang Xinmin (Photo/Luo Yunfei)

Yang Xinmin began bodybuilding in 1984 when he was a spritely 35 years old. At that time, bodybuilding was new in the Chinese fitness community.

In 1985, he won the 70kg weight class at a bodybuilding contest held in his hometown Yantai, in eastern China's Shandong province.

Yang has witnessed the development of China’s bodybuilding industry over the past 35 years. In the 1980s, he used simple facilities to train and ate normally.

Yang Xinmin (Photo/Luo Yunfei)

At that time, people were conservative about bodybuilding. It was not until a bodybuilding competition in Shenzhen when female athletes wearing bikinis walked on stage for the first time that people began to accept the sport.

The event was reported all over China and even made headlines overseas, which excited Yang.

In the 1990s, fitness rooms began to emerge in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou as people started to pay more attention to keeping fit.

After the year 2000, bodybuilding became popular throughout China. According to a white paper, the number of fitness rooms in China reached 46,050 last year, with 43 million active users. 

Yang Xinmin (Photo/Luo Yunfei)

Yang Xinmin in a contest in 1993. (Photo courtesy of Yang Xinmin)