{"id":675880,"date":"2026-11-05T16:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T16:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/675880\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T16:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T16:08:13","slug":"dame-helen-mirren-81-reveals-shes-traded-her-military-fitness-workouts-for-yoga-after-crediting-the-exhausting-regime-with-keeping-her-in-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/675880\/","title":{"rendered":"Dame Helen Mirren, 81, reveals she’s traded her military fitness workouts for yoga after crediting the ‘exhausting’ regime with keeping her in shape"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RICHARD EDEN, DIARY EDITOR<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published: 06:28 EDT, 5 November 2026 | Updated: 06:37 EDT, 5 November 2026 <\/p>\n

Dame Helen Mirren<\/a> has revealed she has ditched her ‘exhausting’\u00a012-minute military workout in favour of more relaxing yoga sessions.<\/p>\n

The Oscar-winning actress, 81, previously swore by the regime as her\u00a0secret to keeping in shape and has long championed the workout style.<\/p>\n

Helen adopted the Royal Canadian Air Force military workout, known as the XBX programme, which was developed for women in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

However, after mentioning the XBX programme several times during her career, she revealed she now takes a softer approach to exercise.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘I used to [do it],’ she says. ‘I don’t any more. It’s too exhausting. I do yoga, I do about ten, 15 minutes a day.’<\/p>\n

Helen first promoted military fitness in 2014 when discussing how she keeps fit in her sixties.<\/p>\n

\"Dame <\/p>\n

Dame Helen Mirren has revealed she has ditched her ‘exhausting’ 12-minute military workout in favour of more relaxing yoga sessions (pictured September 2026)<\/p>\n

She confessed to being a ‘classic yo-yo dieter’ and said she has always fluctuated by 10lb and is currently ‘at the top end of those 10lb and I have got to get back to the bottom end’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But rather than hit the gym, she said that it takes her just 12 minutes of exercise a day to become fit.<\/p>\n

It is a stretching and toning regime originally designed to keep the men and women of the force fit in a quick way without gym equipment. <\/p>\n

The routine comprises five exercises for men and ten for women such as push-ups, sit-ups, running on the spot and arm circling, which work all the muscle groups. <\/p>\n

There are targets to aim for, with more exercises at a harder level to be completed within the 12 minutes once strength starts to improve. Dame Helen said she returns to the plan whenever she feels her fitness slipping.<\/p>\n

‘I’m not very fit at all actually,’ she told Hello! magazine at the time.<\/p>\n

‘Just this morning I started my exercises, which I haven’t been doing for months, maybe years. I do a thing that leads me into exercise. It is the Royal Canadian Air Force exercise plan; it is 12 minutes and they have charts you follow\u2026 Each day, you have to do the exercises within the 12 minutes and until you can, you can’t move up.<\/p>\n

‘It is the exercise I have done off and on my whole life. It just very gently gets you fit. Two weeks of doing that and you think: ‘Yeah, I could go to the gym now.”<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Oscar-winning actress, 81, previously swore by the regime as her secret to keeping in shape and has long championed the workout style (stock photo)<\/p>\n

In 2021 during\u00a0an interview with British Vogue in October 2021, she said: ‘I’m a big believer in the Canadian Air Force women’s exercise regime, which is 12 minutes.’<\/p>\n

She explained that it starts at a very easy level but gradually becomes more challenging.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, she admitted: ‘I’ve never gotten past the second level, but it’s a nice little exercise program.’<\/p>\n

She also said it needs to be done every day and that she herself is ‘incredibly lazy’ and sometimes has to pull herself back into exercising.<\/p>\n

Dame Helen was photographed in 2008 wearing the red bikini on a beach in Italy where she has a home with her husband Taylor Hackford.<\/p>\n

The picture went around the world and cemented her reputation as a sex symbol at 62.<\/p>\n

But despite the shot being very flattering, Dame Helen has previously said it will ‘haunt’ her for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n

She said: ‘I don’t actually look like that and I know that that is going to haunt me forever and I’ll be forever trying to bury it unsuccessfully.’<\/p>\n

‘The truth is I don’t really look that good, it was just a flattering picture. I am beyond the bikini-wearing age, really. I wouldn’t normally wear one. I look like a woman in her 60s. I’ve always looked awful in a bikini, even when I was young.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By RICHARD EDEN, DIARY EDITOR Published: 06:28 EDT, 5 November 2026 | Updated: 06:37 EDT, 5 November 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[539,499,103,49651,61,60,1489],"class_list":["post-675880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-dailymail","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-helen-mirren","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tvshowbiz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}