Jennifer Aniston Made This Workout Swap After Years of Hard Cardio ‘Pounded’ Her Body

For years, Jennifer Aniston felt like she had to do high-intensity cardio workouts with a view to feel fit.

“It was like run, run, run, run, run, boxing, boxing, boxing, boxing,” the actor tells SELF. “I actually just pounded my body.” 

Then she learned about functional fitness, a sort of exercise that prepares your body to higher handle the movements required in on a regular basis life. While that term may sound like a mouthful, it’s actually pretty easy: The backbone of this type of training involves foundational exercises you’re probably already conversant in, like planks, squats, curtsy lunges, and glute bridges, and challenges you to perform them in multiple planes of motion—not only the forward and backward or up and down you’d do with weight machines on the gym. 

The goal of this type of exercise is to assist you to move more efficiently and do tasks like picking a box up off the ground, carrying a load of groceries into the home, or quickly pivoting to the side to hop onto a curb, without getting hurt. Principally, functional fitness helps you navigate your day-to-day life as easily and safely as possible. 

Aniston was nursing a back injury in 2021 when she tried functional fitness for the primary time: On the suggestion of a friend, she tested out Pvolve—an organization that uses one of these training as the idea of their programming—and was hooked. Now an official partner of the brand, Aniston says the concept of functional fitness “form of just modified my whole outlook” on what it means to work out.

The classes Aniston focused on used tools like resistance bands and sliders to extend the problem of body weight moves. The exercises incorporate all ranges of motion, including front-to-back (standing soccer kicks), side-to-side (alternating side lunges), and rotational (stepbacks with rotation), with the goal of constructing well-rounded strength, stability, and mobility. After a workout now, she says, the physical sensation she’s left with is “strength and never fatigue.”

Form and careful movement are key to a majority of these exercises, and the extreme focus it requires helps Aniston feel energized, she says. She contrasts that with workouts like treadmill runs where you may mindlessly undergo the motions without fully engaging your brain.  

Prior to starting a functional fitness routine, Aniston ceaselessly battled injuries, she says. But now, she “feels strong” and her body “doesn’t hurt prefer it used to.”

Despite the fact that functional fitness is low-impact, though, it doesn’t mean it’s best to do it daily. And that’s something Aniston has taken to heart—and possibly something else that plays a task in her body feeling higher than it had previously. Understanding five, six, or seven days per week, she says, isn’t essential. Currently, Aniston exercises two to 4 times per week—she also sprinkles in some gentler Pilates sessions together with her other training—and usually takes rest days. The oft recited fitness mantra of “no pain, no gain,” she says, is “bullshit.”

Having a consistent functional fitness routine—and a just-as-regular time for rest—is only one piece of Aniston’s wellness practice. She also prioritizes her health by staying hydrated, attempting to get good sleep (something she admits struggles with, but is “really working on”), and being intentional about who she spends her time with.  “All of that,” she says, “is vital.” 

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