As you get older, exercise selection can become just as important as how hard you push and how well you recover. While building muscle and strength still comes down to progressive overload and consistency, the exercises you choose can make a huge difference to how well you avoid injuries and make progress long term.
According to Jeff Cavaliere of Athlean-X, prioritising movements that build strength while protecting your joints and mobility is key to continuing to train pain-free as you age. In a recent YouTube video, Cavaliere broke down the 10 exercises he’d choose if he could only perform those movements for the rest of his life.
‘This is not a geriatric list of exercises,’ he says. ‘These exercises would have set the stage for a healthier version of me today.’
Jeff Cavaliere's 10 Favourite Exercises
1. Box Squat
Cavaliere explains that when it comes to squats, including a box can be helpful for technique. ‘The box gives you that target point,’ he says. ‘So, initially, just as you start the rep, if you’re not performing the exercise properly by having some available hinge in your hips, this is going to force you to do that because you have to hinge to actually start to align your butt with the box you’re about to sit on.’
2. Reverse Lunge
Cavaliere says there’s a big difference between the reverse lunge and a standard forward lunge because of how it feels on your knees. ‘As somebody that’s dealt with a lot of knee pain, this is going to be a game changer if you find yourself in the same boat,’ he says.
The benefits include challenging your frontal-plane stability and strength. ‘When you’re on one leg, unlike when you’re performing the squat, your hips are going to want to shift,’ he adds. ‘This exercise is a no-brainer for me. It should be in every single programme. It’s a perfect complement to that bilateral squat.’
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3. Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
‘The 30-degree incline bench press seems to be the best angle for balancing out your ability to use heavy enough weights to continue to get strong, but at the same time being protective enough on your shoulders,’ explains the coach.
4. High Pull
Cavaliere says that the high pull is not to be confused with the upright row. ‘I’m not doing the upright row because the elbow and wrist positioning is vastly different in the high pull.’
He says that to perform it correctly, you should ensure your wrists are higher than your elbows, ‘because what that does is it creates external rotation at your shoulders rather than internal rotation that you would get from an upright row.’
‘That’s a big difference-maker when we’re talking about maintaining shoulder health for the long haul,’ he explains.
5. Pull-Up
Cavaliere also includes pull-ups among the movements he believes people should continue doing for life, despite acknowledging how challenging they can be. ‘The pull-up is that ultimate measuring stick. It’s not easy, but it doesn’t mean that it should be forgotten,’ he says. He argues that the ability to pull your own bodyweight remains an important marker of strength as you age.
6. Seated Cable Row
‘When you do this variation of a row versus, let’s say, a standing barbell row, I can accommodate anybody out there that has low-back issues or pain because by doing this variation, I’m not going to have to deal with that,’ says Cavaliere.
7. Barbell Curl
The barbell curl gives Cavaliere the chance to build the biceps, but he explains that it does so in a way that still maintains the neutral wrist position ‘that we all should strive not to lose no matter what decade we’re in,’ he says. ‘When you do that, guys, you get great gains from the exercise, and it’s one that you should never forego.’
8. Lying Tricep Extension
Cavaliere says the appeal of the lying triceps extension is the additional stretch. ‘You can do exercises that just focus on extending your elbow. Or you can do ones that extend your elbow, but also place that arm up overhead. That gives you some additional triceps stretch and more effectively targets that third head, the biggest one of the triceps, and that’s the long head.’
He adds: ‘Just by having to assume this overhead position, you’re getting a good lat stretch.’ He also mentions that you’ll improve your overhead shoulder mobility.
9. Cable Pull-Through
The coach says that the cable pull-through is a ‘ticket to a pain-free low back for the rest of your life’. This is due to the cable pull-through’s ability to strengthen the glutes by encouraging a strong hip-hinge movement pattern.
10. Face Pull
‘The reason why I stress the face pull being so important is because it hits so many muscles that tend to get almost zero attention in any comprehensive training programme,’ says Cavaliere. ‘The face pull will actually do it in a more acceptable way.’
‘The face pull represents that perfect blend between mobility and strength and helps you to feel not only stronger but better for many years to come,’ he says.
