With fitness, I decided that I wanted to get into shape, and my passion for fitness and a desire to help other people do the same made me decide to do a fitness video. People always tell me they want to work out to my songs, so why not make a fitness DVD.
People talk about physical fitness, but mental health is equally important. I see people suffering, and their families feel a sense of shame about it, which doesn’t help. One needs support and understanding. I am now working on an initiative to create awareness about anxiety and depression and help people.
For most athletes, there’s a focus on your own fitness, but I have to rely on my horse, too. I’ve been very lucky so far, and it hasn’t presented a problem, but you can never count on a competition going as planned until you’re there and actually doing it.
Obviously, when you’re doing fitness work at a club all week and every week, it’s all about specific drills for what you need to do on the pitch. So I’d be doing a different drill to the centre-midfielders. It’s all specifically tailored for me. For example, my drills are high speed. It’s all about trying to break the line with a sharp sprint.
I love to sing. I also had a band during my college days in Saudi Arabia called Thousand Decibels. If not an actor, I would have become a singer. I am very passionate about work. I am a fitness freak: I go to gym before doing my shoot. I also do yoga.
I think that our culture is doing something to women – let’s say women in their late 30s and 40s and probably even 50s, – where they really are expected to keep this insane level of fitness and youth. I find that just a real waste of women’s lives. I really do think that.
Some people have that school of thought where fitness isn’t enjoyable, but we’re making it enjoyable, I think, by making it more fun, challenging, and engaging rather than this boring thing that you have to do. It’s about using technology and data to change this experience.
At my first Olympics, I didn’t have a contract, and I wasn’t making any money. After my first Olympics, I was working at 24 Hour Fitness at the front desk. I would go to practice in the morning, run home, shower, grab some food and then go straight to work. I didn’t get off of work until 10 or 11 o’clock at night.
Every day, I get up to hit the gym; the schedule is such that it gives me the requisite energy to last the entire day. I stress on cardiovascular exercises, and the workout is programmed with my sporting schedule. Most of the fitness schedule is based on what I require for my upcoming matches.
When I got the call from Chippendales, my jaw dropped, as it came on the heels of TMZ calling me fat on national TV. I am passionate about health and fitness, so I’ve kept in shape, and dancing is something I’ve always enjoyed, so I figured, why not?
People who were always hardbodies love that competitive style of team-sports activity: they come up with timers and fitness contests and personal bests. But for the vast majority of people, competition in exercise is not fun. It’s no fun to compete if you know you can never win.
I just remember having the President’s Fitness Challenge when I was in elementary school and middle school. You had to do different activities, and at the end of it, I think you got a little pin or a badge. I was like, ‘How do we incorporate Captain America into high school?’ You would have the ‘Captain America Fitness Challenge.’
The most important thing for me to teach my children is about health and fitness. It’s about taking care of your body and eating foods that are good for you and getting the right exercise that you need… It’s just about living a healthy life for longevity and a healthy heart.
Vivametrica isn’t the only company vying for control of the fitness data space. There is considerable power in becoming the default standard-setter for health metrics. Any company that becomes the go-to data analysis group for brands like Fitbit and Jawbone stands to make a lot of money.
I’ve taken a lot of risks through the years, but I always followed my instincts and always explored new opportunities. The biggest reward has been having an idea and being able to make it a reality. My passions always lead the way – travel and adventure, fitness, art, and home.
I think people who become compulsive about fitness or eating right, a lot of the time it’s out of fear that they’re going to lose control or that they’re not good enough, so I think anything done out of fear or motivated by fear is often unhealthy.
At the end of the nineteenth century, a fanatical craze for physical fitness swept through Britain. Millions of men and women took up gymnastics, body building, and other physical exercises. Such a thing had never happened before, and it was given a name – Physical Culture.
There are people who intensely clutch an idea that yoga is a higher system, not to be lowered to the weight loss or even fitness category. This is the same kind of clutching that has kept yoga part of a tightly knit club for so long since its introduction in America.
There is not much awareness about fitness in India, unlike other countries. We don’t get too many medals at Olympics; one of the reasons is we don’t have that culture of fitness in India. That is why we decided to start this chain of gyms under my name.
The truth is, I feel sorry for the Old Etonians. Everybody should be judged on his or her own merits. Assuming that toffs are ‘out of touch’ is more modern and fashionable than assuming they have a ‘natural fitness for government,’ but it’s no fairer.
Currently, many job seekers must check a box on their applications indicating whether they have a criminal history. These boxes are often used as proxies for job fitness, and job-seekers with criminal histories frequently find themselves screened out of contention. As a matter of basic fairness and also economic sense, it’s time to ban the box.
As for my own fitness, with my packed schedule, I try to mix it up with different things every day. That includes powerlifting, isometrics, yoga, sprints, jogging, and, of course, wrestling. I’ve learned that all you need to do is move and do different things to challenge yourself.
What I had said was that as a cricketer, you have to take care of your body and look after your fitness levels, and someone altered that statement and quoted me as saying that I wanted to quit playing Test cricket. It’s totally untrue, and as long as I am fit, I want to play in all formats.
I enjoy fitness. I’ve always enjoyed trying to stay healthy. I’ve enjoyed all my gym work; obviously there’s a cross-over with that going into cricket. But you also talk of finding an escape and I think in the last year or so, running has provided me with that.
I had a meeting with Umar Akmal and discussed exactly where I thought he was. We are looking at the skillset that he brings to the Pakistan team. Obviously, he is a very intelligent player but he knows that he has to conform. He knows that he has got to pass the fitness standards that are required of him.
