At 92, Solly Krok keeps in shape with an exercise in toe-touching

“Can you touch your toes? I can’t. Barney can.”

Veteran business titan and philanthropist Solly Krok is talking about his friend-turned-fitness coach Barney Gordon, 98, who is determined to help Krok reach his goal of touching his toes in celebration of his 92nd birthday on Friday.

Krok's goal is two-fold. First, he wants to encourage elderly people to keep active and, second, he wants to raise money to feed the vulnerable. 

“What's the most important part of the body for longevity?” he asks the reporter.

If you guessed the brain or the heart — which he said are the common answers — you'd be wrong.

“It's the legs, think about it. Your legs hold you up, and you need them to stay active,” he said.

Krok cites a study from the University of Copenhagen, published in the scientific Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine in June 2015. The finding was that in both old and young people, two weeks of inactivity lost them their leg muscle strength — by up to a third,  equivalent to 20 to 30 years of ageing.

In the twilight of his years, Krok wants to be as healthy as he can and he wants the country, and especially the elderly, to join him through the #TouchDownChallenge by creating videos of themselves becoming flexible.

For Krok the whole idea came about in 2020 after speaking to Discovery CEO Adrian Gore about Covid-19 and how it has and will affect the poor.

“So Adrian said to me, 'Solly, for your 91st birthday, why don't you walk 91km. I'll be your first sponsor.' I said, 'Adrian are you mad? I've never walked or exercised in my life!'" he said.

After suffering complications from knee surgery, Krok still wears a brace. 

But Krok took Gore's challenge and started with a walk from his home in a gated complex to the entrance 170m away. Halfway to the gate he thought he would give up, but he had 80m to go. In the end Krok didn't just make it to the gate; he made it all the way back home again.

In the end he achieved his 91km goal.

“In life, we call it 'touchdown'. If you can see the goal you just need to put one foot in front of the other. So if you achieve your goal it's a touchdown. So that's my mission, to show everybody that in life, whatever you want to achieve, do it step by step.

“In my case, to help the poor my goal is to deliver a meal every day, and every meal delivered is a touchdown for me.

“Barney Gordon is my lifelong friend who will be 99 years young on September 7. Despite numerous operations, including a quadruple bypass, he touches his toes 20 times each morning. Barney peddles on a health machine 400 times and walks a kilometre or two daily.

“That’s why I have engaged Gordon as my coach to train me to touch my toes, hence the birth of the Touchdown Challenge. Collectively we will be 191-years-old in September,” he said.

Krok says he's getting more flexible and now has 30cm to go before he can touch his toes.

The challenge will raise funds to feed the vulnerable through donations to his food relief initiative Keep the Wolf from the Door (KWD) in partnership with community upliftment organisation Afrika Tikkun.

As a call to action Krok wrote the following poem:

Raise your hands

Reach up high

Stoop down low

Touch those toes

From where we grow

Touch the soil

Plant a seed

Bring to life a soul

Touchdown.

Barney is the man

Going on ninety nine

He has a plan

To inspire just fine

To Reach a goal

Touchdown.

Sol is his pupil

Going on ninety two

To stretch and reach

To Touch his toes

Touchdown.

Barn and Sol

What a team inspiring all

To go the extra mile

To save a life

To bring a smile

Stretch and reach

Touch your toes

Score a goal

Touchdown.

Go the extra mile

Save a life bring a smile

Stretch and reach

Touch your toes

Touchdown.

Donate via EFT to:

Bank: ABSA

Account Name: Afrika Tikkun NPC

Account Number: 4055885366