414 ‒ Resistance training as we age: exercise selection, training intensity, and much more
Peter Attia talks with physical therapist and YouTuber Jeff Cavaliere about lifting as you age: training around injuries, pushing sets close to failure instead of piling on volume, and his top exercises for each muscle group.
The gist
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Cavaliere, who lives with a torn labrum and rotator cuff, now warms up with resistance bands so his joints are ready before he lifts.
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As lifters age, Cavaliere says to cut volume and push sets nearer failure, calling four or more reps in reserve junk volume.
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For shoulders, Cavaliere uses landmine presses for sore joints, cable lateral raises for middle delts, and wide-elbow seated cable rows for rear delts.
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Cavaliere's favorite triceps move is the lying tricep extension, and he trains the upper and lower back with two-rope face pulls and supermans.
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For legs he rotates front, belt, Spanish and Bulgarian split squats with reverse lunges, and holds calf raises for 4 seconds at the bottom.
"For me, I actually tried to utilize bands before training. I could take my bands out and work on warming up my rotator cuff or doing some of the movement patterns I'm going to be doing that day... The beauty about bands is that they're perfect for warming up because they stret..."
▶ Play at 35:18"Reps in reserve is essentially a measure of how hard you've taken a set. A zero reps in reserve is you've taken that set to full mechanical failure... Four RIR or more to me already starts to become junk volume... What I want people to do is to start at almost every opportunit..."
▶ Play at 40:16"A landmine press is essentially you take a barbell, put it into a corner of a room if you're training at home. Put a towel there so you're not ruining the corner of your room... All you're doing there is taking away some of the verticality of the exercise... People that have o..."
▶ Play at 58:19"Any lateral raise is good. I do like the cable lateral raise a lot because it's got tension throughout the exercise for a longer portion of the range of motion. If we do a lateral raise with our arms at our side, the exercise has basically zero tension at the bottom... But wit..."
▶ Play at 1:07:22"For me, the most effective way to hit the rear delt and hit it with a lot of weight is a seated cable row. And we do the seated cable row with wide elbows. So you have your elbows lifted up away from your sides, and your goal is to drive the elbows back behind your body... you..."
▶ Play at 1:12:41"For me, the most effective way to hit the rear delt and hit it with a lot of weight is a seated cable row. And we do the seated cable row with wide elbows. So you have your elbows lifted up away from your sides, and your goal is to drive the elbows back behind your body."
▶ Play at 1:12:41"I think you can still do a heavy lying tricep extension as your compound exercise, and you're also checking off that box of the stretching of the triceps long head at the same time. That's my favorite exercise for a number of reasons... I believe this is the best exercise you ..."
▶ Play at 1:20:23"My favorite is the face pull. I talk about the face pull all the time. I like the face pull because it isn't necessarily just corrective in nature. It could actually be loaded up enough to cause hypertrophy of the rear delt, the mid traps, the rhomboids... You really should at..."
▶ Play at 2:12:04"I like Superman-type exercises where you're laying flat on the ground and you're raising your thighs off the ground the same time that you're raising your arms up... squeeze your glutes together first, get that stability, then lift off the ground... like 15 sets of one mentality."
▶ Play at 2:08:05"You can carry the weight more anteriorly. So that's why we have the front squat... that gives us a chance to direct some of the load a little bit more effectively towards the quads. I love the front squat. You have to be okay with the fact that you're not going to be able to h..."
▶ Play at 2:17:03"The transition between the two is a belt squat because that weight gets directed more directly downward. I love the belt squat because it doesn't require the loading on the back for people that don't have the strength to support that."
▶ Play at 2:17:253 creators recommend it, including Andrew Huberman and Joe Rogan.
See all on the Belt Squat page"I have an exercise that I like to do, which is a squat variation called the Spanish squat. You basically take a band and you put it around the back of your knees... It's basically taking the elements of a leg extension, but because you're doing it in a closed chain way with yo..."
▶ Play at 2:17:39"I also have taken to Bulgarian split squats as a favorite of mine because I know that I can effectively hit the quads more one leg at a time... So, the big cue there is to maintain as tall of a chest position as you can."
▶ Play at 2:19:11"Same thing with a reverse lunge. Absolutely. One of my favorite exercises for posterior, anterior, depending upon how much angle of my torso I allow."
▶ Play at 2:20:08What they recommend · 16 picks
Health & fitness
15 picks · Jeff Cavaliere ·Jeff's health & fitness →
"For me, I actually tried to utilize bands before training. I could take my bands out and work on warming up my rotator cuff or doing some of the movement patterns I'm going to b..."
"Reps in reserve is essentially a measure of how hard you've taken a set. A zero reps in reserve is you've taken that set to full mechanical failure... Four RIR or more to me alr..."
"A landmine press is essentially you take a barbell, put it into a corner of a room if you're training at home. Put a towel there so you're not ruining the corner of your room......"
Peter, Jeff, Joe and Andrew agree on 22 things
J
See what they all use, in their own words. Paid ads are left out.
See what they all swear by Or pick your own peopleOther picks
1 pick · Peter Attia
"By the way, I have no affiliation with the company, but I have become completely enamored with and obsessed with Voltra... One of my patients gave it to me. I loved it. I actual..."
Jeff Cavaliere
15 picks · guest
"For me, I actually tried to utilize bands before training. I could take my bands out and work on warming up my rotator cuff or doing some of the movement patterns I'm going to b..."
"Reps in reserve is essentially a measure of how hard you've taken a set. A zero reps in reserve is you've taken that set to full mechanical failure... Four RIR or more to me alr..."
"A landmine press is essentially you take a barbell, put it into a corner of a room if you're training at home. Put a towel there so you're not ruining the corner of your room......"
Peter Attia
1 pick · host
"By the way, I have no affiliation with the company, but I have become completely enamored with and obsessed with Voltra... One of my patients gave it to me. I loved it. I actual..."
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