Lifting For Life Love Of Weightlifting Keeps ‘Mustang’ Gonzales Going Strong At Age 79 - Very, Very Strong

Three mornings a week, from 6 to 8 a.m., Alfred “Mustang” Gonzales lifts weights at Central Park Racquet Club, preparing himself for a future assault on a national age-group bench-press record.

Mustang’s previous record, established in 1991, is a seemingly modest 235 pounds.

He trains hard despite knowing he may be the only competitor in his age classification.

Much of his inspiration comes from his wife, Matilda. They’ve been married 55 years.

“When you look at me, what do you think?” Mustang asks. “Am I fit?”

Fit, indeed. In November, the muscular Mustang will celebrate his 80th birthday. He plans to celebrating by competing in his new age bracket, a pace-setter for those who follow.

Gonzales began competitive weightlifting 10 years ago in his native Hawaii and is a multiple state champion as well as the World Record Breakers Power Lifting Championships record-setter in the 70-75 age classification.

“Weightlifting has kept me healthy,” says Mustang. “If you want to make this dramatic, it’s been a lifesaver.”

What was to be a simple operation in 1992 following bouts of angina, turned into quintuple by-pass heart surgery. It was then the Gonzales’ came to the Spokane Valley to live near their daughter.

Within a year and a half he was back in the gym.

His current early morning workout regimen includes 20 bench press repetitions, beginning at 45 pounds and increasing at 35-pound increments to 155 pounds.

Fellow lifter Rod Hoover, nearly 30 years younger than Gonzales, marvels at Mustang’s early-morning workouts.

“He’s a hard worker,” Hoover said of the compact 5-foot-5, 200-pound Gonzales. Younger lifters, says Mustang, must spot him 30 pounds when they train together.

Two days a week at home he and his wife take walks and do calisthenics. Matilda said most of her exercise comes from doing the hula.

In her spare time, the energetic Matilda, 77, is both a painter of brilliant water colors and a poet who has twice won the World of Poetry Golden Poet award.

“He has the brawn, I have the brains,” she laughs.

Mustang and Matilda speak enthusiastically of their love of country and life. They talk of their heritage, Hawaiian history and of how his myriad careers took them around the world.

Although they visit their four sons in Hawaii, both say they very much enjoy their Spokane Valley home.

Mustang is primarily of Filipino and Portuguese descent. Matilda is native Polynesian and Chinese.

“What people don’t realize,” Matilda says, “is when we became a state, pure Hawaiians were in the minority.”

The only ones who remain, she said, live on the island of Niihau.

Various cultures arrived to work the agricultural fields of Hawaii, making it a melting-pot society. Mustang’s father arrived from the Phillipines and was a multi-language interpreter for the territorial courts.

“I was born during World War I and have seen everything since,” says Mustang.

His careers have included boxer, shipfitter, cowboy, land salesman and construction general manager.

He dodged bullets at Pearl Harbor while repairing damaged ships and said he gained a profound love of America while witnessing the swiftness that the damaged naval fleet was restored from the rubble.

“I admired the ‘haoles’ “, he said. “All my life I tried to be American.”

Matilda interjects: “Before statehood they were called haoles. Now they’re Caucasians.”

His distinctive western attire from his cowboy days was connected to an affinity for driving Ford Mustangs while in real estate. It earned him the nickname that stuck.

“People would ask for Alfred and no one knew who it was,” said Matilda.

Construction projects that resulted in long stays abroad included an airport in Saipan and oil ports in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Gonzales’ toured Europe extensively and Matilda has a collection of ceramic dogs from cities they’ve visited.

Mustang said his competitiveness came from boxing. He was junior flyweight champion on the island of Kauai in the 1930s.

He originally began weightlifting as part of his decision to quit smoking and drinking.

“I was going to have my first child and felt I wanted to be a good example,” he says.

The family grew to four sons and a daughter, 17 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren.

While in Saudi Arabia he helped form a weightlifting club. But it wasn’t until 1987 that he entered competitions and won, setting a Hawaii state record.

“Lifting is part of my life,” Mustang says. “It is fascinating. When you’re under a weight of 200 pounds or whatever, just being able to push it up gives you great satisfaction. It keeps my body in tune.”

Mustang says he eats no red meat, following the dietary edicts of the Mormon religion.

“The key is I have a wife who is my dietician,” he says. “When I want to eat something I shouldn’t, she raises a fuss.”

Matilda approves of his weightlifting regimen and its results, admonishing Mustang only that his stomach could be flatter.

“Like I tell my sons,” she says, “at least he’ll die happy.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 color)