And as if that wasn't enough, he's also taken up Pilates and recently mastered the "crow" pose, a move that plenty of fit twenty-somethings struggle to hold.So what's actually driving this kind of discipline at 98?
He pushes until his body tells him to stop, and then he's done for the session.The crow pose addition is where his routine gets genuinely surprising.
For Kober, picking it up later in life and using it alongside his Pilates practice seems to serve a different purpose than the press-ups.
Where the press-ups build and maintain strength, holding a balance pose like crow asks for stillness and concentration, which appears to be exactly where the relaxation comes from.
For anyone wondering whether it's "too late" to start building strength habits later in life, Bill Kober's daily forty might be the most convincing answer available.
Image: George King/BBC
Why he keeps doing it, in his own words
The decades of physical work behind his stamina
Why press-ups specifically, and not the gym
How crow pose fits into his daily relaxation
What this actually means for the rest of us
Looking ahead to triple digits
Bill Kober, a 98-year-old from Woodbridge, Suffolk, does at least 40 press-ups every single day without fail, 20 in the morning and another 20 in the evening. And as if that wasn't enough, he's also taken up Pilates and recently mastered the "crow" pose, a move that plenty of fit twenty-somethings struggle to hold.So what's actually driving this kind of discipline at 98? Kober says it's less about chasing fitness goals and more about something simpler, "Only in my later years have I realised that I've got this ability, and so I do it because I'm able to and, as they say, use it or lose it, and I don't want to lose it," he told the BBC.Kober says exercise has "never been important as such" to him personally, but he acknowledges he's always stayed active thanks to a career built around hard, manual labour. He spent two years in the Army, worked in the building trade developing houses, and put in 28 years, the bulk of his working life, inside a factory. The final decade of his career was comparatively gentler, driving students to and from a school in Ilford on a bus.It's worth noting that Kober never followed any structured fitness plan either. "I've never followed it religiously, but I dabbled in a little bit of weight training and I tried running, although I didn't like that very much," he said.Press-ups are simply what stuck. "But doing press-ups is what is keeping me breathing well. I do it until I can't do it any more. And then I get up and relax, and that's it," he explained. He pushes until his body tells him to stop, and then he's done for the session.The crow pose addition is where his routine gets genuinely surprising. It's a balance posture that demands real core strength, shoulder stability, and focus, the kind of pose that intimidates plenty of younger yoga students. For Kober, picking it up later in life and using it alongside his Pilates practice seems to serve a different purpose than the press-ups. Where the press-ups build and maintain strength, holding a balance pose like crow asks for stillness and concentration, which appears to be exactly where the relaxation comes from. It's less about pushing the body and more about quieting the mind through controlled effort, a combination that's becoming increasingly recommended for older adults trying to maintain both physical and mental sharpness.What makes Kober's story land the way it is isn't really novelty, it's the ordinariness of it. No special equipment, no elaborate program, just consistency carried into advanced age. For a population that's often treated like physical activity past a certain age has to be gentle or purely symbolic, his routine quietly pushes back on that idea. Movement can still be daily, deliberate, and modestly demanding well into your nineties.Kober has been married to his wife for more than 75 years, and he's already thinking ahead to his 100th birthday, with his sights set on reaching the milestone carrying the same morning-and-evening press-up count that's defined this stage of his life. If consistency really is the thing keeping him strong, there's no obvious reason to expect him to slow down before he gets there. For anyone wondering whether it's "too late" to start building strength habits later in life, Bill Kober's daily forty might be the most convincing answer available.
