Dolly Parton Hated Working Out. But She Loved 'Rejoicing Exercises'

—Terry Wyatt —Getty Images Dolly Parton knew a thing or two about working 9 to 5 .

Working out was another matter.

“If you tell me I’ve got to do an exercise routine…I dread it so bad,” she told Allure in 2021 .

Her workaround was “ rejoicing exercises ”: a freewheeling combination of gospel music, singing, stretching, shouting, and praising.

“I do more ‘rejoicing’ than I do ‘working out,’” she said.

She occasionally added a few floor exercises and squats—especially, as she put it, “diddly-squats.” In doing so, she stumbled upon an important truth: Movement doesn’t have to feel like punishment to count.

“Dolly honored herself through movement,” says Michelle Segar, a lifestyle-change sustainability scientist at the University of Michigan and author of The Joy Choice: How to Finally Achieve Lasting Changes in Eating and Exercise .

Parton tossed out the rules about what exercise was supposed to look like and designed something that reflected what she needed.

“She knew this was for her,” Segar says.

“And because it was for her, she had to design it for herself.” That instinct—to stop chasing the supposedly perfect workout and start with movement that feels good, meaningful, or restorative—could make it easier to keep moving over time.

Here’s what we all can learn from Parton’s views on exercise and movement.

“Rejoicing exercises” were quintessentially Dolly Parton’s routine combined the forces that shaped so much of her life: faith, music, and creative self-expression.

She began singing in her maternal grandfather Jake Owens’ church at age 6, and later described feeling divinely inspired as a songwriter, says Leigh H.

Edwards, a professor of English at Florida State University and author of Dolly Parton, Gender, and Country Music .