Japan’s Radio Taiso still used by 20 million
- Radio Taiso, Japan’s radio calisthenics routine, is still practiced by more than 20 million people weekly, according to an April 28 Associated Press report. - Japan Post Insurance said a 2024 survey found 12.1% of respondents do Radio Taiso at least once a week, with national awareness at 88.2%. - A 2024 trial linked the routine to better balance and endurance in frail older adults, ahead of its 2028 centenary. (jp-life.japanpost.jp)
More than 20 million people in Japan still do Radio Taiso at least once a week, keeping a 10-minute broadcast exercise routine alive nearly a century after it began. (scmp.com) The routine is a set of simple calisthenics done to music, usually in groups at schools, companies, parks, and summer neighborhood gatherings. Japan Post Insurance says Radio Taiso was created in 1928 by its predecessor, the Postal Life Insurance Bureau. (jp-life.japanpost.jp 1) (jp-life.japanpost.jp 2) Japan Post Insurance said in a December 6, 2024 release that a consumer survey conducted in August 2024 found 88.2% awareness of Radio Taiso in Japan. The same survey found 12.1% of respondents said they do it at least once a week. (jp-life.japanpost.jp) That 12.1% figure is lower than the “more than 20 million” weekly users cited in the April 28, 2026 Associated Press report, but both point to a routine that remains widespread in a country of about 124 million people. (scmp.com) (jp-life.japanpost.jp) The case for the routine is not intensity. Japan Post Insurance and its research partners describe Radio Taiso as something people can do “anytime, anywhere, by anyone,” with movements that work flexibility, balance, leg strength, coordination, and whole-body endurance. (jp-life.japanpost.jp) In the study published in the Journal of Epidemiology, researchers tested a 12-week home-based Radio Taiso program in older adults with frailty or pre-frailty. The journal summary said the program improved agility or dynamic balance, aerobic endurance, and exercise self-efficacy, but did not improve health-related quality of life over 12 weeks. (jeaweb.jp) (jp-life.japanpost.jp) Japan Post Insurance has been using the routine as a public event as well as a daily habit. Its annual “10 Million People’s Radio Taiso and Minna no Taiso Festival” has been held since 1962, and the company says the 65th edition is scheduled for August 2, 2026, in Chiba City. (jp-life.japanpost.jp 1) (jp-life.japanpost.jp 2) The routine reaches its 100th anniversary in 2028. Japan Post Insurance says it still sees Radio Taiso as part of a long-running effort to extend healthy life expectancy in Japan’s super-aging society. (jp-life.japanpost.jp)
