How to Work Out Like a French Girl: The Art of Low-Key Fitness

This week, while in Paris for Fashion Week, Manhattan-based expat Lola Rykiel will be one of the few Parisians jogging in the Luxembourg Gardens. “My family thinks I’m so weird—like I’m a real athlete,” she says of the light cardio habit she picked up after moving to New York City to do PR for Sonia Rykiel, which was founded by her grandmother. That her fitness inclinations shock her nearest and dearest comes as no surprise to Rykiel, who says that growing up in Paris, “there was no such thing as working out. [Even at school], you have sports one afternoon per week, and all the girls have a note to say they don’t have to do it!” Rather than joining her for a morning run, her hometown friends stay active merely by “going out in clubs, walking around Paris, and chilling at cafés! People aren’t obsessed with being healthy, most people just are healthy.”

But how? Soho-based Pilates instructor Annie Venier, who just a few years ago moved her practice, Le Petit Studio, from Boulevard St. Germain to Broadway, notes that in France, “People didn’t go to the gym and pump iron.” Instead, she says, they’re more likely to be found participating in “leisure activities,” like tennis, squash, swimming, horseback riding, or fencing. According to Venier, low-impact movements such as these have their own benefits: allowing for better consistency than more extreme forms of fitness. “[Parisians are] not overusing or injuring their joints,” she says. “They allow themselves to feel good.”

It’s certainly a change of pace from the fitness scene in America, where no-pain-no-gain training techniques like CrossFit and Barry’s Bootcamp continue to gain cultish followings. “You’ll never see SoulCycle in Paris,” says Rykiel. Similarly, there’s a stateside resistance to France’s laid-back forms of movement. Rykiel recalls once dragging a friend to her favorite Manhattan Gyrotonic studio, only to hear her say, “This is not a workout, this is just a massage.” And it’s true you probably won’t break a sweat at Venier’s Soho studio or at Tribeca’s Aqua Studio, run by Paris native Esther Gauthier, who emphasizes lengthening, lymphatic drainage, and overall health over blasting fat. “The concern is to be who you are and to enjoy life,” says Rykiel.

And that attitude of joie de vivre in exercise, according to Rykiel, comes from deep within French culture itself. “I can’t speak for the entire country of France, but in Paris we have an hour-long lunch break, we go on long walks, we’re less stressed,” she says. “We don’t need a big sigh or to release so much tension.” Skipping the gym in favor of an active yet laid-back life? Sign us up.

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