old gym rat

A 99-year-old inspiration

GYM REGULARS MARVEL AT DISCIPLINED ROUTINE OF EX-ENGINEER

Bins Chien works out three times a week at a Fremont gym. He lifts weights, bikes and sweats on an elliptical machine.

Sure, the routine sounds inspirational for any couch potato. But what makes this workout schedule exceptional is that Chien is kissing 100 years old -- three times the age of the average gym rat at Fitness 19 on Fremont Boulevard. And what the frail, retired electrical engineer from China doesn't know is how his regimen is rubbing off on those around him.

``When I see him, I'm just in awe,'' said Paul Sandoval, 33, of San Jose, a club manager and bodybuilder who can bench-press 405 pounds. ``He motivates me and everyone else in the gym.''

On this particular Monday morning, Chien's daughters Ning Sun, 75, and Sharon Lin, 73, drive him to the club in a southern Fremont strip mall. Chien hobbles from the parking lot with a cane. Each step looks painful. One of his daughters taps his tailbone with her fingers to remind him to keep moving. He refuses assistance, even when Sandoval opens the club doors for him.

``Hello, hello!'' Sandoval greets the trio.

``I can do it myself,'' Chien responds quietly with a smile, waving off help.

His daughters treat Chien like a king. They take his coat and strap his feet into a Life Fitness bicycle. Then he's left alone to do his own thing. His daughters take a cardio machine on either side of him to sweat alongside him.

``My father is very good at self-discipline,'' Sun said, describing a dad who made sure his seven children ate together as a family but forbade the young ones to speak until the meal was over.

At the gym, Chien is dressed in neat black slacks, a burgundy sweatshirt and a red baseball cap. The motions of peddling on the stationary bike are agonizingly slow. The odometer reads 3 mph. His spine is straight. His eyes gaze forward, Zen-like, in the distance. He doesn't speak much -- his daughters say he's always been a quiet man. He can't see well and wears a hearing aid. The television and pop music in the background don't distract him.

Chien, who was an electrical engineer for new power plants in China and all over the world, turns 100 on Nov. 11.

But he's celebrating his birthday this month with a family party in Monterey, since it's easier to gather the extended family during the summer vacation. At least 60 relatives are coming together the weekend of June 23; his family has rented out a room at the Embassy Suites. No one is left from his hometown of Hangzhou in southeast China, but he has siblings in Shanghai and Beijing who are flying out for the festivities.

Chien has four daughters and three sons, 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. His wife, Yinlow Fan, died of breast cancer in 1970.

She was the reason Chien moved from China to the United States; he wanted the best treatment for her, and family found her care in Buffalo, N.Y. Chien lived with each of his children until settling with his oldest daughter's family in Fremont in 1987.

Chien is one of seven siblings, born into a privileged family who say their ancestors were part of the monastic Chien family 1,100 years ago. Chien's father was a chief auditor for a bank; many of Chien's descendants are physicists.

Chien's life is rigid and simple.

Each day he wakes at 7:30 a.m. He dresses himself, and makes his bed. He washes up, cleaning the tub before he exits the bathroom. Breakfast is prepared for him, as all meals throughout his life have been made and served to him by women, his daughters say.

His usual fare: xifan, a milky rice porridge, and a taste or two of Jif peanut butter that he scoops out of the jar with his chopsticks. He naps after breakfast. Three times a week he heads to the gym, for at least half an hour of cardiovascular exercise and a rotation of 10 weight machines.

While doing his leg curls, Chien announces: ``I'm cold.''

His daughters are nearby to hand him his jacket.

When he's not at the club, he walks in a park in Fremont.

``It takes about an hour and a half,'' said Lin, who accompanies him on the walks. ``He likes to sit down and watch the kids play.''

After lunch, sometimes of pot stickers or noodles, Chien takes another nap, reads the Chinese-language World Daily newspaper, and jots notes in his diary, something he has done for the past 80 years. The weekends provide a slightly different routine: In addition to visiting with family, he attends the Home of Christ Church in Fremont every Sunday.

``He's so independent,'' Lin said. ``He is always saying, `I can. I can.' We don't want to hurry him, even though he moves so slow.''

Planning ahead, his daughters asked him what he'd like to do in the fall for his real birthday. He said he wants to go to the South Pole and visit Antarctica.

``So we're looking for a cruise,'' Sun said. Hopefully, it will have a workout room.

By Lisa Fernandez. Contact Lisa at lfernandez@mercurynews .com or (510) 790-7313.