BEIJING - The ninth edition of China's broadcast callisthenics was released here on Monday to help promote national fitness as the past eight sets did.

China's sports chief Liu Peng declared the official release of the callisthenics after the video reviewed the past eight editions starting form 1951. According to many generations in China, the familiar music and voices of the announcers have become their eternal memories.

The radio callisthenics is always broadcasted in middle school, college, social units, park and so on, where people do exercises to music in the studying or working break.

Zhang Ping, the designing group deputy leader of the callisthenics, introduced that the ninth edition was still based on the general characteristics of gymnastics and also brought in some new sports elements to meet modern people's body-building needs.

"Doing the exercises twice usually needs ten minutes and is equal to the effect of a medium-level sports," said Zhang.

Besides the issuance ceremony, a series of other sports activities were staged on across the country on Monday, which marked the yearly National Fitness Day.

In 2009, the State Council named August 8 as the National Fitness Day, a fresh move aimed to meet people's need for sports activities, also marking the anniversary of the opening of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Also in the year, the State Council pledged greater access to sports facilities by rolling out the National Fitness Regulations with the aim to get more of China's 1.3 billion people involved in sport.

According to the sports officials, the ninth broadcast callisthenics will be spreaded across the country in the following years to invite more and more people to learn.