98-year-old Woodbridge man does 40 press-ups a day, eyes 100

Bill Kober still begins and ends each day with 20 press-ups, a ritual that has turned the 98-year-old Woodbridge man into an unlikely symbol of steady, practical longevity. He has said exercise has "never been important as such" to him, but he has kept moving through a lifetime shaped by hard work and routine.

Kober lives in Woodbridge, Suffolk, and his daily pattern is simple: at least 40 press-ups, split evenly between morning and evening. He has also been described as doing Pilates. Recently celebrating his 98th birthday, he has said he wants to keep the streak going until he turns 100.

That discipline sits alongside a working life built on physical labour. Kober spent two years in the Army, worked in the building trade developing houses, put in 28 years at a factory and then finished with 10 years driving students to and from a school in Ilford on a bus. He is a father of two, and the arc of his life runs through the kind of jobs that demanded endurance long before fitness became a lifestyle marker.

George King profiled Kober for the BBC, and the attention helped make him something of a local talking point in Woodbridge. The appeal of his story lies less in novelty than in the ordinariness of it: no special equipment, no elaborate program, just consistency carried into advanced age. For an older population often treated as if activity must be fragile or symbolic, Kober’s routine shows a harder truth, that movement can still be daily, deliberate and modestly demanding at 98.

Kober’s goal is now measured in years rather than reps. If he keeps the habit he has already built, the man from Woodbridge will reach 100 with the same morning-and-evening count that has defined this stage of his life.