79-year-old British actress and Oscar winner Helen Mirren is known for her youthful appearance and chiselled figure, which she is not shy to show off at social events and red carpets. All this, the star claims, is the merit of not only genes, but also the training that she performs every day for the past 60 years. In her fitness programme, Mirren follows an exercise system developed for the women of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
‘It takes only 12 minutes to complete! It starts with very simple exercises and then gets quite challenging if you keep going. But personally, I’ve never gotten to level two,’ the actress told Woman’s Weekly.
The programme called XBX, which Mirren follows, was invented in the 1950s by Dr Bill Orban specifically for female recruits to improve their physical fitness. There are four levels to the complex. There are ten simple exercises in each level – forward and side bends, knee raises and arm circles. They are performed in strict order and with increasing difficulty. Each set takes 30 seconds to complete.
