Kiwi actor and stunt woman Zoë Bell is legendary for her fearlessness and physical strength. How many other people do you know who would willingly leap from a 20-story building all in the name of a day’s work – think Deathproof?
Her hugely successful Hollywood career, which has seen her stunt doubling for Hollywood stars Uma Thurman, Sharon Stone and Lucy Lawless – and most recently Cate Blanchett in Thor: Ragnarok – has meant she has had to stay on top of her fitness game.
So how does she stay so fit and strong? We asked her – and her answers might surprise you:
Zoë , how do you keep fit and strong?
I find ways to incorporate exercise into my life, making sure I do things that I can maintain to alleviate boredom. I mix it up – if I go for a two-hour surf, I will give myself permission for that to be my workout.
I am a big fan of not having guilt being my motivator to exercise or keep fit. Guilt is a paralyser, if I feel guilty I become resentful and won’t get out of bed. So I tell myself to just go for a walk to the beach in my gear and see what happens. Half the time I’ll end up running around the block, then another block, and then maybe another. Sometimes I just walk.
When I’m fit, exercise becomes a place for me to think. When I’m unfit, it becomes a mind game.
What does your workout schedule look like?
It is hard to keep a schedule as my life has very little routine so I mix things up. I love going to classes like spin as I feel a sense of responsibility to it because I’ve booked the class or am meeting a friend.
In the gym, I prefer to do high intensity interval training as it means I can go as hard as I can for 40 seconds and rest – I love that feeling of satisfaction you get when you push yourself to the limit in a short period of time. Or I’ll create a circuit where I sprint on the treadmill for a short burst then do a burst on the rowing machine.
If there’s no gym around, I’ll go down to the park and sprint for 20 secs and rest for 10 secs.
Zoë recently teamed up with Reebok to help raise awareness about violence against women.
Saturday 25 November marks annual awareness day White Ribbon Day and to support the campaign Bell and Reebok hosted a free, female-only self-defense class, CONFIDENCE UNLEASHED. The class, which promoted female empowerment and safety, brought together more than 100 women who were taught self-defence techniques.
