Morning Stars | Milind Soman: No exercise like yoga for minimum effort, maximum impact

Milind Soman flags off the World Earth Day Run organized by DLF Mall of India on April 16, 2023. (Image courtesy DLF Mall of India)

Note to readers: Morning Stars is a series of interviews with achievers across fields about their morning routine and how they get ready for the day ahead.

At 57, swimmer-turned-actor Milind Soman runs at least 60-70 km a week. The Mumbai resident was in NCR on April 16, 2023, for the World Earth Day Run organized by DLF Mall of India. We caught up with him on video call after the event, to talk about his morning routine, running for fun, and staying fit in your 50s. Edited excerpts:

Are you a morning person or an evening person?

Late morning.

Which means?

I wake up around 8.30 and then stay in bed for the next hour or so. I don't do late nights - I don't party or socialise a lot. I stopped that at the age of 27.

Okay, so you wake up at 8.30. What next?

I love running. So once I drag myself out of bed, I go for a run at around 10 am.

Warm time of day to run?

Others usually like to run at 5.30-6 - but then they also have to go to office, etc. I don't (laughs).

Until you start running, you won't know how much you could enjoy it. People don't start. But once you start for some reason - your friends, your family, your wife, husband - and they say come on, come on, you get into it.

So how many kilometres do you normally clock in a week, when you don't have a big event coming up?

I don't train specifically for events; in a week, I run around 60-70 km.

Even when you're travelling, or shooting? How do you strike that balance?

Yesterday I had a flight, but I ran 18 km. Today I ran 15. You have to make time for what you want to do.

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Is there something that you absolutely can't do without every day?

Fruits; mostly watermelon and papaya, but I also eat bananas, mangoes, whatever is in season. I love eating fruit, and fruit is amazing for you, as we know. So that's why I have such good skin, see.

Is that breakfast, or is there more to your morning meal?

Depends, if I am hungry after eating 3 kilos of watermelon or 6-8 mangoes... Whatever is available: poha, dosa, chana-bhatura... But my staple is daal khichri with lots of vegetables - at least one meal a day is daal kichdi and vegetables.

(Image courtesy DLF Mall of India)

What's your favourite fitness activity?

I don't run for fitness; I run because I love it. So I run whenever I can.

But there are certain things I do to maintain a level of fitness, because as you age, you begin to lose certain abilities naturally. Like, you can't jump very easily as you grow older, you can do pull-ups, your mobility and flexibility become difficult because your muscles get very stiff.

So I would like to practice doing a split, touch my palms to the ground with my legs straight. So those are exercises that you have to pay more attention to because as you grow older, you begin to lose those abilities. And once you lose some abilities, then it's like a domino effect... you don't even realize.

I work out maybe 10-15 minutes every day at home - I do not go to the gym. I do a plank a 4-minute plank and that's the end of my workout in the morning. Then if I have time, I go for a run. If I have half-hour, I run for half-hour; if I have 1.5 hours, I run for 1.5 hours.

I know yoga is very good. I'm going to start developing some discipline in yoga. Because it's very easy to direct good blood supply to weaker parts of your body with minimum effort (when you do yoga). There is no exercise like yoga...it's incredible for minimum effort, maximum impact.

How many full marathons have you run so far?

So, I started running 20 years ago. I did my first 42 km (full marathon) in 2009. That's 14 years; at maybe twice a year, that's 28.

But other than that, I do much longer distances like 400 kilometres from Jhansi to Delhi. Some friends and I, we run on 30-31 December. We run about 120 km over two days to a place that we really would like to be in for New Years. Like last year, we ran from Dharamsala to Dalhousie.

(Source: Twitter/milindrunning)

What's your least favourite workout?

I don't do anything that I don't like. The biggest thing I like is to challenge myself. So the challenge is important. The workout can be anything.

Coming back to morning routines, do you read/consume the news in the morning? Or do you leave it for the rest of the day? Or do you not bother with the news much?

I don't bother with the news at all.

Why is that?

Because it's mostly fake. I tried to read what is verified.

What else takes up your mornings?

My wife tries to get me to meditate but... I think my whole life is meditation. So it's okay.

Then it depends. I don't have to go to an office or anything, unless I feel like it, so it's all ad hoc. I get I get a lot of emails that I have to attend to basically it's jobs that I have to decide whether I want to do or not.

Anything you're reading or watching right now that you're excited about.

I saw something on the plane yesterday which was called Shining Veil - it was a strange series, and I was about to recommend it to my wife. But I watch a little bit and then I kind of get bored or I lose track.