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“I had to retrain my brain,” Jennifer Aniston tells me of how her attitude toward fitness has “absolutely evolved over the years.” We’re on a Zoom call that the actor, producer, director, and American treasure is taking from her airy home in Los Angeles, gabbing about how modern workouts are becoming more elegant. “It used to be pounding, pounding, pounding; You had to get 45 minutes to an hour of cardio; otherwise, you weren’t getting a workout,” she says of getting to the point where she wasn’t looking forward to the grueling monotony. “Not only do you stress your body, you burn out; Who wants to do that at all?” Now, though, she’s found something that works on another—decidedly gentler, yet extremely robust—level.
Photo: Instagram.com/jenniferaniston
In 2021, after a back injury, a friend pointed Aniston to Pvolve, the functional fitness company founded by Rachel Katzman that’s become an insider favorite for its resistance-based equipment. Today, Aniston announces an official partnership with the brand after seeing her results targeting muscles that are “usually asleep” with ballerina-friendly movements that require 10 or 20 minutes rather than hours of cortisol-spiking intensity. The P.band, for example, she takes everywhere. “I have one in my car,” Aniston says. “You can put that on and just move if you have a 5-minute break.” Then there are the gliders. “You almost feel like you’re dancing,” she says. It’s leveled up from her aerobics-style dancing days in her twenties when she might go to a “class for an hour with a ton of people and injure myself because the teacher’s not paying attention to the students—just watching their own beautiful physique,” she jokes. She also feels better now than in those days, anyway.
I tell her about a discussion I’ve been having around the phrase often thrown around timelessly gorgeous women, “You look great for your age,” and how it should actually be: you look great—period. “It drives me bananas; I can’t stand it,” she says of the backward compliment. “That’s a habit of society that we have these markers like, ‘Well, you’re at that stage, so for your age… I don’t even understand what it means. I’m in better shape than I was in my 20s; I feel better in mind, body, and spirit. It’s all 100% better.” Her new relationship with movement also speaks to the enhanced mind-body connection that we’re seeking in 2023.
When I ask her if the buzzy wellness discussion about “longevity” means anything to her, she agrees that it’s something she considers: “My family lives a long time, especially my dad’s side–I want to be thriving; I don’t want to just be alive,” Aniston says. Sustainable movement is part of the long game. “With Pvolve, you can really pick from so many workouts depending on how much time you have, the level of strength that you’re at, and where your body’s at, and you feel energized afterward.” It seems more like what I imagine a chic European does, I say, of maybe walking around the city and then working out in front of a mirror at a barre for a bit; very chill compared to our American standards. “They’re onto something,” Aniston agrees. “I think it’s just taking the pressure off of ourselves and really knowing that whatever you did that day is enough, and don’t be your own worst critic.”
And with Pvolve, she’s found a new balance. “It’s just good on my body; it’s good to my body,” she says. “And I feel like I’ve done something really good for myself.”
Originally published in Vogue.com
