Forget the 710-lb. deadlifts and 470-lb. back squats — workouts look a little different for Arnold Schwarzenegger these days.
Now 71 years old, the former bodybuilder and actor had to change up how he exercises to adapt to his body.
“Squatting and all those kind of like heavy leg exercises, I can’t do anymore,” he told Men’s Health. “My knees are shot. I have to protect my knees because I want to go skiing.”
But, as anyone who follows him on Instagram knows, Schwarzenegger does still lift weights, thanks to updated gym technology.
“The machines that you have today, I wish that I could have used them in addition to what I did, because they’re really amazing,” he said. “A guy like myself who had shoulder surgery, hip surgery, knee surgery — they can always find an exercise around the injury that I could do. So I cannot do dumbbell lateral raises anymore, but I can go and find the machine that does exactly the same thing and I have no pain.”
Schwarzenegger, who dealt with a heart problem earlier this year that required open-heart surgery and a valve replacement, has also become a huge fan of cycling.
“I do mostly bicycling, so that’s why I want to bicycle all over the world,” he said. “When I travel, I get around in the bicycle. When I go shopping or something, I go on the bicycle, because then you can exercise in the legs and you see the town in a totally different way.”
And he still fuels like a pro, with a new line of protein powders and supplements that he worked on with an all-star team of LeBron James, Lindsey Vonn and Cindy Crawford. The company, called Ladder, personalizes the products to each person’s needs.
“The idea is not to overwhelm people with these huge cans of protein, stuff they didn’t know what to do with, how many scoops to put in,” Schwarzenegger said.
It helps when one person is trying to get in bodybuilder shape, and another person just wants to tone up. Schwarzenegger said his son Patrick is walking that line between two body types in his acting career.
“Patrick, he works out every day, but he doesn’t want to get too big because of the acting, because he’s being sought after now for romantic roles, not action roles,” Schwarzenegger said. “But eventually, when he gets to be like 30, 35, he will go get bigger and then do more action movies. But I love seeing [my sons] work out and being into it. It’s a great feeling.”