Exercise is best: four women and their love of exercise Zumba is an aerobic dance workout. There are salsa moves, merengue, shimmies. I've always loved to dance and in Zumba we do routines. The teachers in my class also play chart hits, so if there's a song you like you can really go for it. There are women of all ages - from teenagers to women in their fifties. And all shapes and sizes, too; one of the things I like about it is that it's not competitive and, if you can't manage to do it all, it doesn't matter. Nobody judges you. Now I do two hour-long classes back to back religiously every Tuesday, and one at the weekend if possible. We do killer sit-ups before each class so I have built up my core strength and am more fit and toned all over. After having children your clothes don't seem to fit well anymore, so it's nice to feel better and have more confidence. There's a great energy in the class. I feel so good mentally as well physically when I leave the class and it gives me a real sense of wellbeing. In fact, that burst of energy I get each week has gradually filtered out into other aspects of my life, such as my renewed enthusiasm for other interests; I recently started my own baking business, and I'm also really enjoying a course in tailoring. If I don't do the class - which has only happened a few times - I feel as if something really isn't right. It's pretty sad, but this year Valentine's Day fell on a Tuesday and I chose to go to class rather than spend the evening with my husband. I did ask him if he'd mind. Shirlee Kay 53, is a psychotherapist. She has been practising jivamukti yoga for four years I've always been incredibly athletic. I've always run and I was a real gym bunny, but I was running and running and never sitting still. I felt I was just pounding myself but that's all I was doing. I never saw any results and I never felt as if I was getting fitter or stronger. Twenty-seven years ago I tried yoga but it wasn't until four years ago, when I went to India with my older sister, who's a yoga teacher, and all her yoga friends, that I started loving it. It was at a time when my psychotherapy practice had started turning into something I wasn't sure I wanted to do any longer. Yoga helped get a spiritual aspect into my work and made me think differently about the way I wanted to be with people. The way I see yoga, it's a physical practice but it also pushes you to be with yourself in ways that aren't always comfortable. If you're struggling with a position, if you're struggling with thoughts while you're in yoga, it gives you the opportunity to just be with it and accept it; that helped me in the way I work with my clients. I'm not saying it solves all the problems, and I don't encourage my clients to do yoga, but I certainly encourage them to listen to their bodies. I believe that our bodies tell us everything we need to know, and yoga allows you to create a space for feelings that might not otherwise surface. The meditation, or having to do a really difficult pose and stay with it, or the competitive feelings, or feelings of inadequacy, or wanting to be the best - you're confronted with these feelings on your mat. Yoga has strengthened me beyond belief. I'm much more flexible, and it's made me feel so much better in myself. I see it as a really good way of keeping young. I'm in my mid-fifties now but it has given me a brand-new way of looking at myself and being more accepting, not being as critical of my body. I now do a class four or five times a week. I work really hard and it can be exhausting dealing with people's problems, but I don't get as taxed by the work anymore. I feel as if I have more strength than I did in my twenties. I have two grown-up children and I'm definitely stronger than both of them - which I tell them all the time! Clare Culloty 45, is a senior operations manager at Disney. She took up karate five years ago I had signed my children up for karate classes at the Park Club in Acton and noticed that they were starting an adult class. I had done a bit of self-defence and had tried tae kwon do in my twenties. I've always tried to keep fit and I've always gone to the gym but I do find that after 20 years of going to the gym you don't accumulate much knowledge - you don't get better at it. I still go once a week to the gym but in five years of going to karate I've accumulated real skills and I'm now a brown belt. It does give you a sense of achievement. It's nice to know that at my age I'm still capable of learning something new. There are three other women in the class who are also mothers. There have been a few women who have tried the class and then given up. Quite often they don't like it once you start doing the fighting and the sparring. It is a bit of a shock when people start hitting you, or you have to start hitting them. It's quite difficult to hit somebody. You have to be encouraged. In sparring you're put against somebody who is a similar weight and size. When we do punching we practise against pads, but sometimes the women are allowed to punch some of the bigger men. It is a skill - learning how to punch somebody and not be scared that you're going to hurt them. I work full time in a job that involves calls to America in the evenings, and I have a family, but once a week I can forget everything and just think about what I'm doing in the class. In the class you have to concentrate 100 per cent; you use your brain as well as exercising your body. It's quite nice being able to put your all into it, punching the pads as hard as you can - although once we were practising punches in class and the next day my fingers wouldn't type properly. I've also been bopped on the nose once while sparring and saw stars, and I often get bruises because you use your forearms to block punches. I'm more toned because we do a lot of stretches; you need to be flexible for all those high kicks. Posture is very important in karate and you concentrate a lot on core strength. My posture wasn't great, and I'm still constantly corrected in the class, but it has improved a lot. Karate builds your self-confidence, and I feel I'm a stronger person because of it. I still think my first defence mechanism would be to run away from any situation where I felt threatened, but I also feel that if I was put in a dangerous position I would be more able to deal with it. Stephanie Haynes 30, is the European marketing director for Six Senses spa resorts. She started practising pilates two years ago About two years ago I was having breakfast with a friend when she looked at me and told me she thought I'd lost my sparkle. I used to do an awful lot of cardio - I was always running and spinning - and as a result I always felt drained and exhausted. I just didn't know what was good for my body. Pippa told me that I needed to go and do a class at Ten Pilates. I've been going religiously three times a week ever since. Ten Pilates is a form of pilates that uses a 'reformer" - an ingenious contraption with pulleys, straps and a moving platform. It's completely shifted my mindset in terms of what I think it is to be strong and healthy. Instead of having an hour of running, where I'd come out and feel exhausted and just want to go to bed, I'd feel completely energised and full of life, and that's how I still feel. I work out every day. I train at Bodyism in London with a personal trainer a couple of times a week and I do yoga two or three times a week. But pilates is my favourite in terms of the results that I see. Before I started I thought I was quite fit, but after my first class I was trembling all over because it makes you use muscles you haven't really engaged before. It builds a really strong, healthy, feminine body, which I think is what every woman should be aiming for. Lots of cardio just gave me a boyish figure. Every time you contract your muscles on the reformer you're stretching them out at the same time, so it makes for long and lean muscle formation rather than bulking up as you do when you pump weights. I'm not very tall - I'm 5ft 4in - so it's important to do things that elongate my body. It's also great for your abs, arms, legs and bum. It hits every single trouble spot that every woman is continually trying to get to, and it does it all in one go. I've always had quite bad posture because my core strength was so weak, but starting at Ten has completely altered how I hold myself. From a longevity point of view, having a blueprint for life is quite important. I feel as if I'm supporting my bones now rather than just wearing them down from hours on a treadmill. As we get older we face all sorts of physical challenges and I think it's important to choose a kind of exercise that will equip you for those things. justdanceuk.com; londonkarate.co.uk