Three weeks into the 24th series of Strictly Come Dancing, Jaime Winstone is coming to fully understand the sheer physical and mental toll of one of television’s most demanding live competitions. The 41-year-old actor has been logging rigorous nine-hour training days alongside her professional dance partner, Carlos Gu. To survive the gruelling weekly cycle, she is leaning heavily on deliberate nutritional strategies, targeted recovery methods, and a robust fitness baseline she developed long before setting foot inside the ballroom.
Despite the punishing physical toll and the relentless pressures of live broadcast television, Winstone describes the experience as an unexpectedly joyful chapter in her career. For the actor, the ballroom has become an intense masterclass in body awareness, resilience, and learning to listen to her physical limits under intense public scrutiny.
From her strategic decision to temporarily step back from traditional weightlifting to her mindful approach to daily fuel and hydration, Winstone’s experience offers an inside look at how high-performance physical preparation actually works when television entertainment meets elite-level athletic endurance.
The Reality of Strictly Rehearsals
For celebrity competitors, the transition from everyday life to the ballroom is notoriously abrupt, and Winstone does not attempt to sugarcoat the daily reality. The physical demands of mastering entirely new disciplines every single week are immediate and unrelenting.
"It’s pretty gruelling," Winstone says of her daily timetable. "I come in every morning with Carlos and we do a 15-20-minute warm-up, which is about getting used to moving in our bodies. It’s like a more intense yoga session, with lots of breathing work. We’re getting our nervous systems ready."
That nervous system preparation serves as the foundation for hours of high-impact movement. Once the warm-up concludes, Winstone and Gu move directly into technical drill work, repeating isolated sections of choreography over and over until unfamiliar mechanical patterns transition into instinctual muscle memory.
On paper, rehearsals generally run from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. In practice, however, those eight hours are only a portion of the workload. The training schedule must constantly accommodate television promotional obligations, media interviews, wardrobe and costume fittings, technical stage walk-throughs, camera blocking rehearsals, and regular appearances on the companion programme It Takes Two. By the time Sunday arrives each week, the cumulative fatigue is undeniable.
"Each routine changes every week, so different parts of your body are working harder each time," Winstone explains. "We’ll repeat sections of the dance over and over just to get the movement into our bodies and our minds."
The sheer variety of ballroom and Latin choreography means that muscular adaptation must occur at a breakneck pace. During the opening weeks of the competition, Winstone and Gu showcased contrasting sides of the discipline, delivering a dramatic Argentine-influenced tango and an energetic cha-cha set to "Pretty Woman."
This week, the pair have turned their full attention to the classical demands of the Viennese Waltz, set to INXS’s classic ballad "Never Tear Us Apart"—a dance Winstone characterizes as uniquely challenging because of its contrasting elements of vulnerability and physical force.
"I think this week’s probably going to be the toughest because it’s the most controlled dance, but it’s also very free," she notes. "I start the dance alone, which feels quite vulnerable. At the same time, it’s really powerful because there are so many spinning movements."
The sustained centrifugal forces, rapid rotational velocity, and precise posture required for the Viennese Waltz place exceptional strain on the core, neck, and lower extremities, testing whether a performer’s physical conditioning can withstand the visual illusion of effortless grace.
Why She’s Paused Her Usual Training Routine
Before joining the cast of Strictly, Winstone maintained a structured personal fitness routine centered on regular resistance exercises. However, upon experiencing the volume of dancing required each day, she made the deliberate, calculated decision to pause her traditional gym-based workouts entirely.
Rather than trying to supplement her dancing with extra conditioning, she recognized that ballroom rehearsals were already demanding maximum output from her muscles and joints. Adding supplementary lifting sessions on top of full-day rehearsals risked crossing the threshold from productive training into chronic overtraining.
"I’ve not been able to work out throughout this because you’re using so many different muscles and you don’t want to pull something by sticking to your old routine," Winstone explains. "It’s very high energy. You also don’t want to lose too much weight because you’re sweating so much."
From a sports physiology perspective, Winstone’s choice reflects sound athletic management. When individuals are already subject to extensive, multi-hour cardiovascular and eccentric muscular loading, maintaining a standard heavy resistance programme can substantially elevate injury risk. Excessive physiological stress can impair soft-tissue recovery, elevate systemic inflammation, disrupt sleep architecture, and compromise immune function.
Rather than measuring fitness by cumulative workout volume, Winstone has shifted her focus entirely toward movement quality, recognizing that the long hours spent in the dance studio constitute high-intensity training in their own right.
"However much you want to push forwards, sometimes you shouldn’t because we don’t want to cause any damage," she says. "There’s only so much your body can take when you’re working such an extreme schedule."
By understanding that self-preservation and recovery are critical components of performance, Winstone avoids the trap of physical depletion that frequently sidelines competitors in high-intensity reality formats.
Fuelling for Performance, Not Restriction
To meet the high metabolic demands of eight-hour rehearsal days, Winstone has adopted an intuitive, performance-first approach to daily nutrition. Weight-loss diets and aesthetic food restrictions have been cast aside in favor of sustained caloric intake and active recovery.
"You’ve got to keep your meals and your hydration on point," she emphasizes. "The moment your brain stops working and your energy isn’t right… it can really set you back. So lots and lots of water, hot drinks and foods that comfort you."
With daily energy expenditure reaching peak levels, Winstone has found herself needing far more sustained calories than usual simply to maintain concentration, physical stamina, and motor control throughout technical rehearsals.
"You can really indulge because you’re working extremely hard, so you do need that extra bit of toast in the morning," she says. "I’m having extra honey in my coffee and lots of electrolytes to replace the minerals you lose through sweat."
Her nutritional focus aligns with standard athletic guidelines for sustained endurance and intermittent high-intensity training. Adequate carbohydrate intake is essential to replenish depleted glycogen stores in skeletal muscle and maintain central nervous system function during cognitive tasks like memorizing complex choreography.
Simultaneously, regular protein consumption aids in muscle tissue repair, while proactive electrolyte replacement counteracts the continuous loss of sodium, potassium, and magnesium caused by prolonged sweating under studio lights.
Rather than viewing nutrition through the lens of restriction, Winstone treats food as essential equipment, actively supporting her body through what has proven to be one of the most physically demanding undertakings of her adult life.
Targeted Preparation: The Morning Foot and Ankle Routine
Long rehearsals in ballroom footwear place unprecedented stress on the smaller, stabilizing structures of the lower body. To mitigate that strain, Winstone and Gu begin every training session with targeted mobility work designed to wake up the extremities and stimulate the nervous system.
Their morning routine focuses heavily on the structural foundation of dancing: the feet and ankles.
"We’ve been doing lots of up-and-down exercises on my toes to warm up the muscles in my feet, plus rise-and-fall movements through my ankles to build strength because they’re really feeling it by week three," Winstone shares.
In ballroom and Latin disciplines, the feet and ankles are the primary shock absorbers and force generators. They must endure continuous plantarflexion and dorsiflexion, absorb landing forces, and stabilize rapid changes of direction—often while balanced on narrow dance heels.
Without targeted activation, repetitive loading can quickly lead to plantar fasciitis, tendon irritation, or acute ankle sprains. By systematically working through calf raises, toe articulations, and rise-and-fall progressions, Winstone ensures that the delicate joints are sufficiently prepared for the repetitive impacts that follow.
Her Training Routine Outside Strictly
While Winstone has set aside supplementary conditioning during the competition, the physical base she relies on in the ballroom was built over years of consistent, functional at-home training.
Away from the intense schedule of television production, Winstone trains two to three times each week under the guidance of personal trainer Holly Active. Balancing physical conditioning with parenting and professional commitments has required a practical, time-efficient setup.
"I’ve worked with the amazing Holly for a couple of years. She’s fantastic," Winstone says. "As a mum on the go, you’ve got to fit it in when you can. I usually manage two sessions a week, or, if we’re lucky, three 45-minute workouts."
Crucially, Winstone does not spend that time in commercial gyms. Instead, her training takes place remotely in her own living space via video call.
"I’m not a gym person. It’s just not fun for me," she explains. "I love training in the comfort of my own home over Zoom. I can listen to my own music, nobody’s watching me and I can really go for it."
Her typical conditioning focuses primarily on functional resistance training, emphasizing free weights, multi-joint movements, and targeted core stabilization.
"I do a bit of weightlifting, lots of core work and plenty of leg days, which are definitely not my favourite," she admits. "We do lots of weights and a fair bit of cardio."
When it comes to cardiovascular training, Winstone avoids high-impact options like outdoor road running, opting instead for joint-friendly alternatives that accommodate previous joint sensitivities.
"I’m a big swimmer—I love swimming," she notes. "Running isn’t so great. I struggle with my knees sometimes."
Swimming provides non-weight-bearing cardiovascular endurance and full-body muscular engagement, keeping her cardiovascular capacity elevated without subjecting her knees to excessive ground-reaction forces.
Additionally, Winstone has adopted cycle-synced training principles, adjusting exercise intensity and movement selection around her menstrual cycle.
"Some days, especially when I’m on my period, I lean more into stretching and yoga," she says. "Holly’s really taught me the importance of proper warm-ups and cool-downs, which has made a huge difference."
This adaptive baseline of functional strength, joint mobility, and body awareness laid the essential groundwork that has allowed Winstone to endure the sudden volume spike of the ballroom without sustaining immediate breakdowns.
The Mindset That’s Keeping Her Going
Beyond physical conditioning and nutritional strategies, navigating the pressure of live television requires significant mental fortitude. The demands of the show were brought into sharp relief when Winstone and Gu found themselves fighting for their place in the competition during the dance-off.
Rather than letting the brush with elimination derail her focus or shatter her confidence, Winstone has maintained a practical, process-oriented outlook centered on incremental development rather than unattainable perfection.
"‘Practice makes progress’ is a good mantra," she reflects. "All you can do is your best—you’re not going to perfect a dance in five days. What a privilege it is to be exhausted by something you love doing."
That mindset—combining gratitude, realistic expectations, and self-compassion—has served as a protective buffer against burnout during weeks when rehearsals stretch the body to its outer limits.
"This show brings so much joy. If Carlos and I can give that to an audience, that’s winning to me," she says.
As Winstone advances through the competition, her journey illustrates that athletic sustainability on television is rarely about pushing through exhaustion at all costs. Instead, it relies on balancing physical discipline with adequate rest, intelligent fuelling, and an enduring connection to the joy of performance.
