Oldest female American Ninja Warrior competitor on how she’s still getting stronger at 73

It is the small things that often prove to Ginny MacColl that she is on the right track in her fitness regimen. Like being able to open a stubborn jar lid with ease. Or flinging a door open with unexpected force. “At 73, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been,” she says from her home in Southport, in the US state of North Carolina. “And those everyday wins – those are the moments I know it’s working.” American actress and dancer MacColl is the oldest woman ever to compete on the long-running US sports entertainment reality show American Ninja Warrior and the oldest person to ever complete an obstacle on the show. On Instagram (@ginnymaccoll), she posts videos of herself doing push-ups, pull-ups, swimming laps and navigating obstacle courses that would challenge someone half her age. Her warm, relatable nature has endeared her to more than 137,000 followers. “I want women to see what I didn’t know for so long,” she says. “We’re not too old. We can build muscle. We can be strong.” Although she has been active most of her life, she did not enter a gym, or do a pull-up, until she turned 63. As a child growing up in the US state of Tennessee, she was so shy that she could not attend kindergarten without a parent in the room. She began to open up when her parents enrolled her in dance class in third grade. “Dance is a kind of communication,” she says. “It’s how I expressed myself.” At 16, she said to herself, “I’m never going to stop exercising.” After studying dance education at university, MacColl headed to New York at 20 to pursue a professional career. She landed a role in the 1974 Broadway production of the musical comedy Pippin, directed by Bob Fosse. “That was a huge moment. I thought, ‘Wow – I’ve made it.’” When the show ended, she transitioned into TV commercials while raising her two children. “I had that ‘mom’ look, and I worked all the time,” she said. “Over 100 commercials. It was amazing because I could film for one day, be there as a full-time mom, and still collect residuals [payments] for years after.” Though she stopped dancing professionally in 1980, she never stopped moving. “I didn’t have time for long workouts, so I did a 20-minute routine every morning,” she says. “Stretches, push-ups, crunches. Just enough to keep me feeling good.” She also found creative ways to stay active with her children. “We played games like ‘the floor is lava’,” she says, in which they avoided touching the floor, instead moving around by walking on furniture. “We’d set up mini obstacle courses in the yard. I exercised through them.” MacColl never lifted weights in her youth. “Women of my generation weren’t encouraged to build muscle,” she says. “I danced, but I didn’t do sports or strength training.” That changed in her late 40s after a doctor diagnosed her with osteopenia. “It’s the stage before osteoporosis. I knew I had to do something,” she says. “After two years of weight training, my bone density went back to normal. The thing that I learned the most: muscle is the organ of longevity.” She became more serious about strength after watching her daughter Jessie Graff – a Hollywood stuntwoman, whose film work includes G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Live Free or Die Hard and The Dark Knight, and a professional American Ninja Warrior competitor – fly through obstacle courses. “She was strong, graceful, had muscles,” MacColl says. “I’d never had muscles. I wanted that.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by jessie graff (@jessiegraffpwr) She began working with a personal trainer and set her sights on a pull-up. “Pull-ups were impossible for me,” she says. “I had no upper body strength. But I didn’t say, ‘I want to do 20 pull-ups.’ I said, ‘I want to do five.’ It took me a year to do one.” In 2017, aged 65, MacColl competed on American Ninja Warrior. She fell on the first obstacle. “I felt terrible because the athletes make it look so easy,” she says. “But it’s not easy. I had to turn that failure into fuel.” She has since been on the show twice more, in 2018 and 2023. She is in the Guinness World Records 2024 edition for being the oldest female “competitive ninja warrior”. After her first failure, her daughter had given her a choice. “She said, ‘Mom, you can sit back and live a nice life. You don’t have to do this.’ But I said, ‘No. I’ve got to do it.’ I didn’t want to be 70 and look back and say, ‘I should have.’” That mindset helped her land a role alongside Diane Keaton in the 2019 film Poms, about a group of older women who form a cheerleading squad. “The story paralleled my life,” she says. “It was about trying something new, failing, and going back to train harder. That’s what I was doing.” She has since appeared in three movies: the 2020 TV movie USS Christmas, Stars Fell on Alabama (2021) and 2025’s You’re Cordially Invited, starring Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell. Currently, MacColl trains nearly every day. In a week, she sees a personal trainer three or four times, practices obstacles and balance drills twice, and swims two or three times. “I’m learning to swim properly – flip turns, dives, all four strokes,” she says. To manage arthritis, she strengthens her fingers with rubber bands. “It’s about protecting my joints so I can stay independent. Grip strength is so important and is often overlooked.” She even “hangs out” on monkey bars installed in the kitchen while preparing cups of tea. She is quick to challenge myths about ageing and femininity. “It’s not unfeminine to have muscles,” she says. “We’re not going to get bulky. It’s about living well. We should all be able to lift our groceries, open the door, stand on one leg. We lose balance after 40, but we can fight that. You’re never too old, and it’s never too late. “If you don’t do anything, the progression gets worse. That’s when you end up needing the cane or the walker. I want to stay strong so I can stay independent for as long as possible.” MacColl also points to the mental benefits of movement. “The health benefits of fitness are right in front of you,” she says. “It’s good for your brain. It can lower the risk of dementia. Just walking can cut heart disease by 30 per cent.” She tells anyone who reaches out to her who has not exercised in a while – or ever – to please start small. “If you are a beginner or out of practice, get a personal trainer,” she says. “You need someone to show you proper form. I just spoke to a woman who started with eight-pound [3.6kg] weights. That’s way too much. She should’ve started with one-pounders.” She encourages people to take baby steps, stay consistent and find a buddy to train with. “Don’t expect to conquer it in a day,” she says. “But if you commit, you will see change.” For those in their 20s and 30s, she has this incentive: “You probably haven’t even heard of osteopenia – but if you stay active, you’ll never have to.” Like what you read? Follow SCMP Lifestyle on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also sign up for our eNewsletter here.

Oldest female American Ninja Warrior competitor on how she’s still getting stronger at 73

Ginny MacColl, who was diagnosed with osteopenia in her 40s, says women are never too old to build muscle. Here’s how she does it