Helen Mirren 12-Minute Workout & Diet

Key Takeaways

• Helen Mirren does the XBX Plan, short for Ten Basic Exercises, a bodyweight routine written for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in the late 1950s.

• The whole session takes 12 minutes and needs no equipment, just enough floor space to lie down, and each exercise gets a set time slot instead of a rep count.

• The plan has four charts of the same ten exercises, from easiest to hardest, with 12 levels in each chart and 48 levels in total.

• You stay on your level until you can finish all ten exercises within 12 minutes, which is what makes the routine harder over time without making it longer.

• SOLE Fitness treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes give you a steady cardio session on days the XBX feels like too much, with free guided workouts in the SOLE+ app so the structure is already set.

What the Helen Mirren 12-Minute Workout Is Designed to Do

The Ten Basic Exercises (XBX) Plan aims at general physical fitness rather than weight loss or muscle size, which is why Helen Mirren has been able to keep returning to it since the 1960s. Dr. Bill Orban built it for Royal Canadian Air Force female personnel in the late 1950s who needed a baseline level of strength, flexibility, and stamina without a gym, so the ten exercises cover the whole body in one short session.

The four charts keep that goal steady as your fitness changes. Each chart repeats the same ten exercises in a harder form, and the booklet assigns target levels by age, so the aim is to reach a level appropriate for you and hold it, not climb forever. It even tells you to drop back several levels after any break longer than two weeks, treating lost fitness as normal rather than failure.

Some days ten exercises against a clock is more than you want to take on. That's where a treadmill, elliptical, or bike is useful: a set pace you can hold without deciding anything mid-session, on equipment built to withstand years of training.

Helen Mirren 12-Minute Daily Workout Breakdown

The descriptions below are for Chart I, the entry-level. The same ten exercises appear on every chart, but each one gets slightly harder as you move up.

1. Toe Touching

Exercises 1 to 4 share two minutes, so roughly 30 seconds each.

This one loosens your hamstrings and lower back. Set your feet about a foot apart, reach both arms up, then fold forward and place your hands on the floor between your feet. 

Bent knees are fine, and the booklet tells you not to fight for straight ones. Coming back up to standing counts as one rep.

2. Knee Raises

Put your feet together, hands loose at your sides, then bring one knee up as high as it goes and hug it into your chest with both hands. 

Keep the spine straight rather than curling toward the knee. Lower the foot, switch sides, and count one rep for each side.

3. Lateral Bending

Side bends work your obliques and keep your waist mobile. Stand upright with your feet about 12 inches apart and keep both hands at your sides. 

Keeping your back straight throughout, bend sideways from the waist to the left, sliding your left hand down your leg as far as it will go. Return to upright, then bend to the right.

4. Arm Circling

Stand upright with your feet 12 inches apart and your arms at your sides. Make large circles with your left arm, a quarter of the count forward and a quarter backward, then repeat with the right arm. By Chart III, both arms circle together in a windmill action.

5. Partial Sit-Ups

2 minutes

Lie on your back with your legs straight and together and your arms at your sides. Raise your head and shoulders off the floor until you can see your heels, then lower your head back down. This one targets the abdomen and front of the thighs, and later charts progress to full sit-ups.

Later charts move the hands behind the head, which is how the same exercise keeps getting harder without taking longer.

6. Chest & Leg Raises

1 minute

The muscles of your back, glutes, and hamstrings get their turn here, balancing all the abdominal work. Turn onto your front and tuck your hands under your thighs with your palms pressing down. Lift your head, shoulders, and one straight leg clear of the floor at the same time, then lower and repeat with the other leg.

7. Side Leg Raises

1 minute

Lie on your side with your legs straight, your lower arm stretched overhead along the floor, and your top arm for balance. Raise the upper leg 18 to 24 inches, then lower it. 

Do half the count on one side, roll over, and do the rest. This one targets the muscles on the sides of the thighs, which get very little work in daily life.

8. Push-Ups

2 minutes

Lie face down with your hands directly under your shoulders. Push your body off the floor any way you can, keeping your hands and knees in contact with it, then sit back on your heels and lower yourself down. 

This one targets the arms, shoulders, and chest, while also working the back and abdomen. The progression runs from here to knee push-ups in Chart II, elbow push-ups in Chart III, and full push-ups in Chart IV.

Knee push-ups are Chart II in the plan, so anyone starting at Chart I has an easier version to work from first.

9. Leg Lifts

1 minute

Waist flexibility is the aim here, along with your hips and sides. Lie flat on your back with your legs straight and together and your palms pressed to the floor beside you. 

Lift one leg toward vertical (or as high as it will go), lower it, then repeat with the other. Later charts turn this into leg-overs, where you lower the raised leg across your body toward the opposite hand.

10. Run & Hop

3 minutes

Stand upright with your feet together. Starting with the left leg, run in place, lifting your feet at least four inches off the floor and driving your knees forward rather than kicking your heels back. After every fifty counts, do ten hops with both feet leaving the floor together.

What Is Helen Mirren's Diet Approach?

Cooking for yourself is what makes moderation possible, since you decide what goes in before you decide how much.

Mirren doesn't sell a diet. Her advice is to work from the inside out, paying attention to what you eat because of how it makes you feel.

She has called herself a classic yo-yo dieter who goes up and down the same ten pounds she has moved through her whole life, returning to her routine when she reaches the top of that range.

That's a more honest starting point than a meal plan for someone whose weight moves, who notices, and who has something to come back to.

Fish & Chips, Guilt-Free

The most quoted line in her food philosophy is that you shouldn't give things up. She is the first one at the fish and chips, and she says so without hedging. She adds that what you put in your body influences how you feel about yourself, so that is where to start.

What the XBX Booklet Itself Says About Eating

The RCAF booklet Mirren follows has its own diet section, and its advice has aged well for something written in the early 1950s.

Its four main points:

• Diet alone is not the best way to change how your body looks. The booklet argues for combining diet with exercise, since muscle condition affects your appearance as much as fat does.

• Crash diets fail. It describes the "diet reflex," the instinct to fast the moment you notice a few extra pounds, and points out that fat accumulates slowly and comes off the same way.

• Small permanent changes beat big temporary ones. Examples include one slice less bread with meals, and less sugar in your tea or coffee, or none at all.

• See a doctor before starting any stringent diet.

That advice is more than 60 years old and describes the same approach to sustainable eating you would get today. It is the logic of the 12-minute workout applied to the kitchen.

Train Consistently at Home with SOLE Fitness

Helen Mirren's routine lasts because it asks for almost nothing: 12 minutes, no equipment, and a level you can drop back to after a break instead of starting over. Her approach to food follows the same logic, favoring small permanent changes over anything drastic.

Equipment has to last the same way, which is why we build our treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes for years of regular use, not a few enthusiastic months. Every machine also comes with free SOLE+ access and 3,000+ guided workouts, so you'll always have a session ready on days you want cardio instead of floor work. Shop the SOLE range today, backed by our 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How long has Helen Mirren been doing the XBX workout?

Mirren has followed the routine since the 1960s, doing it off and on, as she puts it, her whole life. She has been open about the gaps, describing restarts after long breaks. The booklet says to drop back several levels after any break longer than two weeks, so restarting where you left off isn't the idea.

Is the Royal Canadian Air Force XBX Plan suitable for older adults?

The plan was built to scale, with 48 levels running from very basic movements upward, and it assigns target levels by age group. Two cautions from the booklet itself: its age table stops at 55, and it tells anyone over 35 to get a medical examination before starting.

How many calories does the 12-minute XBX workout burn?

That depends on your body weight and how hard you work through each exercise, so no single figure applies. The more useful measure is what the plan asks of you: ten exercises inside 12 minutes, with the reps rising as you move up the levels. The booklet itself tells readers not to expect startling results, since fitness takes time and persistence.

Do you need any equipment to do the XBX plan?

Nothing at all. Every movement is bodyweight, and the whole routine works on any flat surface with room to lie down. A mat helps on a hard floor, but the plan does not call for one.

What SOLE equipment works alongside a routine like the XBX?

The XBX gives you a few minutes of running, which is not much cardio on its own. SOLE Fitness treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes give you somewhere to do more of it, and the ellipticals suit anyone who wants to keep the impact low. Every machine connects to the free SOLE+ app, so you can follow a guided session on the days you want structure.

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