3 Tips To Maintain Muscle Mass As You Age, From A Celebrity Fitness Coach

What if we told you that you could wake up with vibrant energy, keep a clear head, sleep better at night, and ultimately live a longer life? We'd wager you'd be begging to know the secret sauce, no? Well, according to fitness coach and entrepreneur Don Saladino—who has trained A-listers such as Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Hugh Jackman—the key is to build and maintain muscle mass. "It's going to increase your metabolism if you do it the right way," he adds on this episode of the mindbodygreen podcast.

"If you want to put on muscle more efficiently, you're going to want to do some form of resistance training," says Saladino. Now, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, we believe the best type of movement is the one you love—period, end of story. So if you love yoga or going for a run? Please, by all means, carry on.

It's not that Saladino doesn't care about reps at all—but if you're simply going through the motions just to reach a set of 20 or 25, you may be thinking about it all wrong. "I can assign to someone three exercises, and in time they will earn the right to push themselves to the point where they're going, 'Oh my God, I cannot do anything else,'" he says. Meaning, strength-training does not have to be complicated.

Take pushups, for example: "Your glutes should be tight. Your lats should be tight. You should be trying to create tension in the body as you're moving," explains Saladino. "You should be envisioning that a tornado is blowing over your body as you're going through that pushup, and your body's not moving—you're creating this level of stability." Sounds much more difficult than pumping through a set of 10, no? 

You can't expect to jump right into an advanced training program; finding your groove takes time and commitment. "Take a minimalistic approach," says Saladino. "If you hate training past 22 minutes, then make sure you find a program that's 20 minutes long… Find a minimalistic approach where you can allow yourself to be successful."