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Julie Andrews turned 90 last October, and she’s still keeping up a habit she started decades ago: getting her body moving first thing in the morning. She’s leaned on the same three low-impact activities since she was a working actress in her 30s, walking, yoga, and ballet, skipping punishing workouts and fitness trends entirely. Her secret isn’t intensity. It’s consistency.
The Routine Hasn’t Changed Much Since Her Sound of Music Days
When asked recently how she stays active, Andrews kept it simple. “I have all my life worked out first thing in the morning,” she said, adding that she does a bit less of it these days. The exercises themselves have stayed remarkably consistent too: walking, yoga, and ballet, the same trio she’s relied on since she was preparing for stage roles in the 1960s.
Walking Became Her Fitness Foundation While Preparing for a London Stage Run
Andrews first credited walking with keeping her in shape back in 1993, while preparing for a run at the London Palladium. She needed more stamina than she felt she had, so she started taking brisk walks daily, deliberately choosing routes near her farm with steep inclines. “I decided to go for brisk walks every day,” she told Theatre Week, explaining the hills were what built real strength in her legs.
Her Yoga and Ballet Routine Is Deliberately Short
By 2000, Andrews had refined her approach into something closer to a philosophy: do just enough to get real benefit, and nothing more. “I work out as little as I can for as much gain as I can,” she told Woman & Home, describing 30 to 40 minutes of yoga and ballet every other day. She wasn’t training for a role. She said she stayed supple purely for herself.
The Habit Has Stayed Almost Identical for Nearly 30 Years
In 1996, on The Rosie O’Donnell Show, Andrews described a routine that sounds nearly identical to what she still credits today. “I do about 45 minutes of stretching and some aerobics and ballet barre,” she said, listing the combination she’d already found worked for her. Three decades later, the ingredients haven’t changed. What’s changed is simply how remarkable it is that she’s still doing them.
In 2024, She Described How the Habit Makes Her Feel
Speaking with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the podcast Wiser Than Me, Andrews reflected on what decades of the same low-key routine had given her. “I probably feel like in my 50s,” she said, adding that as long as her mind stays sharp, she considers herself doing more than fine. It’s a striking claim from a woman now in her ninth decade.
Fitness Experts Say Her Approach Lines Up With the Science
Andrews’ instincts track closely with what movement specialists now recommend for healthy aging. Physical therapists and geriatric fitness guides increasingly point to walking as one of the single best exercises for longevity, citing its benefits for heart health, joint mobility, and balance without the injury risk that comes with high-impact training. Gentle, low-impact movement, not intensity, is the throughline experts now emphasize for staying active well into old age.
She Covers Every Major Pillar of Fitness Without Overdoing Any of Them
What makes Andrews’ routine notable is the combination, three categories of fitness reinforcing each other rather than any single exercise carrying the load. Walking and ballet build cardiovascular endurance and strength. Yoga adds flexibility and mobility, both increasingly important and often overlooked with age. She’s quietly covered the full range experts recommend, and stuck with it consistently for decades instead of cycling through fads.
She’s Still Creatively Active, Even If She’s Stepped Back From Acting
Andrews marked her 90th birthday last October with a new podcast project and confirmation that she wouldn’t be reprising past film roles, having largely stepped back from acting. Stepping back from the screen hasn’t meant stepping back from movement, though. The same morning habit that got her through decades of stage and film work has simply continued, quietly, long after the spotlight moved elsewhere.
Her Real Lesson Isn’t About Working Out Harder
Andrews never chased intensity, and she never needed to. What she built instead was a routine simple enough to sustain for more than half a century: brisk walks, a little yoga, a little ballet, done consistently rather than aggressively. At 90, still moving most mornings, she’s proof that the exercise that works best isn’t necessarily the hardest one. It’s the one you actually keep doing.