Ernestine Shepherd

Ernestine Shepherd (born 1936) is an American bodybuilder best known for being, at one point, the oldest competitive female bodybuilder in the world, as declared by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2010 and 2011. She modeled in Baltimore for years, and at 56 she and her sister Mildred Blackwell found their bodies out of shape and began taking aerobics classes. Her sister competed in bodybuilding shows as Velvet and Ernestine followed as Ernie, and after her sister died of a brain aneurysm in the early 1990s she carried on in her memory. In 2012 Edith Connor took the record at 77. Shepherd eats about 1,700 calories a day, runs about 80 miles a week, is trained by former Mr. Universe Yohnnie Shambourger, published a 2016 book and appeared in Black Is King by Beyoncé.