Jennifer Aniston can sum up her old workout routine in three words: \u201ccardio, cardio, cardio.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cTreadmill, elliptical, bike. Treadmill, elliptical, bike,\u201d she says. \u201cRinse and repeat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weights were always part of it, but her routine primarily tacked on just five to 10 minutes of lifting to the end of a workout, and usually only five to eight pounds dumbbells. <\/p>\n
It was all a reflection of the \u201cmessaging\u201d at the time, she says, that weights will make you bulky.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hear bulk, and you kind of run for the hills if you\u2019re a woman, a young girl,\u201d she says. \u201cYou want to be lean, lean, lean. And the thought of bulk and weight makes you go, \u2018It\u2019ll get big, big, big,\u2019 and you just go, \u2018No, no, no.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, speaking to TODAY.com about her new 30-day strength training program<\/a> with boutique fitness studio Pvolve, she says, \u201cif only I\u2019d listened\u201d to those calls for people, women especially, to preserve their bone density through weight lifting.<\/p>\n She\u2019s not alone. Pvolve released a movement longevity report that found that 78% of respondents (1,000 women over age 40) to an online survey know weight lifting is important. But 60% don\u2019t do it in a typical week. The reasons range from not knowing where to start (27%), fears of injury (20%) and feeling intimidated by weights (9%), per the report.<\/p>\n Aniston, 57, says she really started to implement strength training into her routine through Pvolve. She started using the fitness method, which offers at-home, on demand workouts, in 2021 as a \u201csecret streamer\u201d after an injury, before joining Pvolve<\/a> as a public partner in 2023. She says she also got injured after trying boxing and CrossFit.<\/p>\n \u201cTo each their own, but I just would find myself injured quite a lot,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd granted, I\u2019m a little klutzy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut Pvolve has just sort of changed all that,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also changed her understanding of what defines a successful workout. She says when her routine was entirely cardio-focused, if she wasn\u2019t drenched in sweat and \u201cheaving\u201d by the end, it didn\u2019t feel like progress. Once she started incorporating weights in her entire workouts, she prioritized consistency, gradual weight increases and listening to her body.<\/p>\n \u201cYou feel sore, but it\u2019s never sore to the point where you can\u2019t walk the next day … well, sometimes, but in a good way,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve had workouts where I really can\u2019t walk or walking up a step or two or having to sit down was just agony. That feels like you worked something too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Aniston\u2019s strength training approach is to add weights to the \u201ceveryday\u201d movements she already did with Pvolve. The moves are often compound, meaning they work multiple muscle groups at a time, and require balance. Her workouts get at the \u201clittle tiny micro muscles that are hiding underneath the big muscles,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n