Fitness guru keeps the elderly healthy
From a distance, many often easily mistaken the quiet local man in a white shirt, a pair of grey pants and black shoes with a spring sprint in his step for a schoolboy.
However, Mandlakayise Vincent Khumalo-Nkomonde works for the Department of Health at Tswelopele Primary Healthcare Clinic, in Spruitview.
He has been a health and fitness enthusiast and trainer since he was a youngster, back at his home in Zone Five, Diepkloof, Soweto, where he was born 63 years ago.
Under normal circumstances, young Mandla would have had his life develop toward a fulfilled normal direction since he would have been raised in a healthy family environment by loving and caring parents who would have given him everything he needed as a child.
Sadly for Mandla, he had neither. His father died when he was five and his mother five years later.
“To keep away from wallowing in self-pity and fill the subsequent emptiness in my life, I played soccer, but that did not help until a karate club later warmly welcomed me. In 1989, I bought a house in Vosloorus, Ekurhuleni, settling a year later in nearby Spruitview, where I met Peter ‘Poison’ Thage and Noah Bhembe.
“I started Mandla Gym 4 Life Krate Gym, giving free lessons. However, the gym failed mainly because some members did not take seriously what they did not have to pay for, attending only when they felt like it.”
On top of being a merchandiser, he participated in the FNB marathons alongside the late Matthews ‘Loop en Vaal’ Motshwarateu.
When a local radio station invited him to talk about Mandla Gym 4 Life towards the end of 2021, he was overwhelmed with calls from elderly citizens requesting him to come and train them from their homes.
That inspired him to register Mandla Gym 4 Life as an NPO. “My commitment to training elderly citizens is to make a difference for the better in their lives and stems from a deep-seated desire to fill the emptiness caused by the loss of my parents. Being deprived of parental care does not mean I should not wish for those of my age and above to be loved and treated like kings and queens.
“I know it would be a big challenge for them to take up physical exercises at such an advanced age to achieve a healthy mind in a healthy body. It is their attitude that will help them adopt a new way of life.
“As an NPO, we hope the government will extend a helping hand towards our cause, and food companies and chain stores to donate food hampers and supplements as a social responsibility to help nourish and speed up the recovery of elderly citizens’ bodies, especially those with chronic ailments.”
By the crack of dawn, he prays, then lifts weights and does push-ups in his make-shift gym, followed by a bath and breakfast before another day’s work. Come afternoon, he changes into his tracksuit and runs for the duration of his lunchtime.
At 18:00, Mandla joins former bodybuilder and his personal trainer for the past two years Lucky Buthelezi at Buthelezi’s gym in Spruitview. Back home, he will carry on exercising until supper and have his regular night shower before calling it a day
