NATCHEZ — It’s been a few days since 96-year-old Paul Klutts has been able to go for a swim, but he aims to rectify that situation this week.

When The Dart found Klutts on Glenwood Drive Friday, he was laid up in an easy chair, recovering from a surgical procedure he’d had the day before to correct a compressed vertebrae in his back.

On a normal day, Klutts will go to the pool at the Natchez Senior Citizens Center and complete a leg workout before doing a 15-minute swim, ending the routine with 15 minutes in the hot tub.

But recently, that routine went awry.

“I was getting into a hot tub, and as I was swinging my legs in, my body quit swinging but my legs kept going,” Klutts said. “It was a very intense pain.”

Once the source of that pain was identified, Klutts had it corrected — although he did swim through the pain for a week.

As someone who has had the five-day-a-week ritual for more than two decades, the nonagenarian athlete said — now that the problem is fixed — he would rather just return to the routine that has kept him in shape for years than bemoan its interruption.

He’ll do that sometime this week, Klutts said.

“It has never been my intention to give it up,” he said. “You don’t live as long as I have if you don’t take care of yourself.”

This isn’t the first time Klutts has faced surgery and a pause from his exercise routine.

“I’ve had heart surgery, surgery on both my knees, carpal tunnel syndrome, but the back thing is probably the worst I have ever had,” he said.

But even the worst pain wasn’t enough to ultimately scare him away from the pool.

“My social life is somewhat connected to the pool, and I have had cohorts there for 20 years,” he said.

“It’s a way of life.”

Only one element of the routine is up in the air.

“I don’t know about the hot tub,” Klutts said.