Prince Philip kept fit with this 11-minute Canadian workout known as 5BX
Newswire
When Prince Philip died, he still had good posture and was able to walk without a cane. He was remarkably fit and mobile for a man just a few months shy of his 100th birthday.
According to Prince Philip’s tailors, the six-foot-tall man’s physique barely changed over the years, and he was still able to fit into his wedding day uniform seventy years later, The Telegraph reported.
“He was a 31-inch waist when I first measured him, and he’s now only a 34…. That’s incredible,” tailor John Kent said in 2017. The London tailor of Kent & Haste, which served the Duke for more than 50 years, added he has never had to let out any of Prince Philip’s clothes.
How did he do it? Besides quitting smoking before marrying Queen Elizabeth II, and avoiding over-indulging in food and alcohol, the late Duke of Edinburgh credited a short Canadian-made exercise regime with keeping him fit all his life.
The Duke, who also enjoyed cricket, sailing, carriage driving and regular walks, reportedly followed the daily full-body strength and flexibility regime known as 5BX (Five Basic Exercises). It was developed by athlete and National Defence scientist William Orban in 1956 to help get members of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) into shape without the need for equipment or much space, but it soon caught on among the general public.
A Canadian government website boasts that the RCAF “started one of the first fitness crazes” with 5BX and XBX (a corresponding routine for women). The plans challenged conventional wisdom at the time that the only way to get fit was through long, gruelling workouts.
“The beauty of the system was that you didn’t need expensive equipment or a health club membership; it was created to keep aircrew in the far north in shape by using standalone aerobic exercises,” the RCAF website says. “It proved so popular that 23 million copies of the RCAF pamphlets were sold to the Canadian public and it was translated into 13 languages.”
The routine received international coverage at the time and the RCAF still receives requests for copies of the fitness routine to this day.
The 5BX regime takes 11 minutes to complete and involves just five basic exercises that get the heart racing and put all the major muscles to work. It doesn’t even require a warm-up before you begin.
The plan has six levels that get progressively more difficult, but the five exercises remain essentially the same. It begins with two minutes of stretching, followed by one minute each of sit-ups, back extensions and push-ups, and concludes with six minutes of running on the spot interspersed every 75 steps with everything from scissor jumps to jack jumps as the intensity increases. The last stage requires “physical capacities … usually found only in champion athletes,” notes a booklet published in 1965.
