Throughout her seven-decade career, Felicity Kendal has become one of Britain’s best-loved actors, from her breakthrough role as Barbara Good in The Good Life to her acclaimed stage performance in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.
But she’s also long been admired for her commitment to health, fitness and regular exercise. Over the past few decades, strength training in particular has become a cornerstone of her routine.
‘I was 50 when my first grandchild was born and I started doing bone density exercises around then,’ the Much Ado About Nothing star and former Strictly Come Dancing contestant told Good Housekeeping.
‘[She] was a big baby… and I remember [that] I went to pick her up and suddenly thought: “I don’t know if I can.” And then I thought: “Sod this, I’m going to be the kind of grandmother my own mother was… swimming with them, taking them off on holiday,”‘ she continued to The Standard. ‘I stepped up the exercise after that.’
Her determination was reinforced by seeing the effects of osteoporosis on her mother, who, she recalled, ‘just went whoosh, dried up and sort of shrunk’. The experience later inspired her to become a celebrity ambassador for the Royal Osteoporosis Society.
She even kept a pair of dumbbells on set during Cole Porter’s musical High Society at the Barbican this year, so she could fit in a few sets during rehearsals.
‘I’ve brought them in because it’s tech week and there is no time to go to the gym,’ she explained to The Telegraph, referring to the period before opening night when technical elements such as lighting and sound are integrated into rehearsals for the first time.
Felicity Kendal’s workout routine
‘If I don’t get to the gym, I crack,’ she said. Her reliance on exercise has increased over the years. ‘It used to be three [sessions a week]. Now I need five.’
She previously outlined what that three-times-a-week routine typically involved.
‘I work out three times a week, a mixture of stretching, yoga and weights,’ she told Express, highlighting one exercise she was particularly proud to have perfected.
‘I’ve also mastered press-ups. I’m so pleased. Now, if I could only stand on my head.’
Her flexible approach to movement also makes it easier to stay consistent.
‘[I exercise] outside, walking in the fresh air, or at the gym, which I try to do regularly,’ she told The Guardian.
Her motivation goes well beyond aesthetics.
‘It’s nothing to do with looks. It’s just if I don’t stay active, I’ll fossilise,’ she explained. ‘You have to keep moving at my age or you run out of energy.’
How she’s stayed fit throughout her life
Felicity has always taken her wellbeing seriously.
‘I do lots of exercise – not so much for how it makes me look, but for how it makes me feel,’ she told The Guardian more than a decade ago.
Even then, her routine was remarkably varied.
‘I do yoga, weights, fast walking, slow jogging, gym, swimming and I have a dog, so I walk every day for hours. When I’m opening in a play, I never get to do as much as I want – the downside of being in rehearsal all day – but exercise is very much part of my life,’ she said.
She even described exercise as the one habit she swears by.
‘It can really change the way you feel and it doesn’t cost anything. That and sleep – and lots of body lotion.’
‘Your brain will work better, and then you can deal with all that stuff life throws at you in a better way than if you’re feeling permanently exhausted,’ she told The Standard.
Yoga has been part of her life since childhood, having grown up ‘watching my mother do yoga as a tiny child’. As for sleep, she says seven to eight hours is her ideal.
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