In this instructional video, JJ Virgin outlines a comprehensive approach to maintaining and improving joint health for adults over 40. She stresses the importance of strength training under the supervision of a qualified physical therapist or trainer to avoid compensatory movements that can worsen imbalances. She describes closed‑chain knee work that targets the vastus and hamstring muscles to restore stability after meniscus or ACL issues. Mobility and fascial health are addressed through soft‑tissue chiropractic work and fascial release. Virgin recommends using vibration platforms (Power Plate) and suspension training (TRX) to combine deep squats, single‑leg and pistol squats with joint‑friendly vibration. Low‑impact cardio such as walking, cycling, and especially pool‑based training is presented as a way to maintain circulation and add power without excessive joint stress. She advises lifting heavy at least twice a week, daily walking, and progressive loading with a rucking vest. Thermal modalities—hot yoga for warm‑joint mobility, sauna for anabolic benefits, and cold plunges for inflammation reduction—round out her protocol. The overall message is a balanced, progressive, and multimodal regimen that blends strength, mobility, cardio, and recovery tools to protect and enhance joint function.
Chapters
Movement truly is medicine here. And when I think about movement, the first thing I'm going to emphasize is strength training. If you're injured, if you have joint problems, I'm going to highly advocate for finding a really good physical therapist or a qualified personal trainer to help you design a program, because what we want to make sure of is that you're not making this worse. Quite often I see people when they're injured or when they have a painful joint, they'll favor it and they'll do things around it and they'll actually make the whole imbalance even worse. So this is where you want to work with a great personal trainer or physical therapist who's trained in this to know how to strengthen the weakness so you can actually take the pressure off the joint. You know, when I had my knee issue, I could have just kind of ignored it, worked around it, did things with my— focused on my other leg. What I did instead was I put more effort into my injured knee, making it stronger so that it would be the same or better then my other leg. And for my knee, what I did was what's called closed chain work, where I do small ranges of movement to strengthen the vastus group of, um, it's part of the quadriceps muscle, right? To strengthen those little muscles right around the knee and to strengthen the hamstring. So to have more stability, cuz I didn't have the stability with my meniscus and my missing ACL. So I had to create it through my muscles.. And I had to make sure that I was not changing the way that I moved, right, as I did this to start to favor the other leg. So that's super important. That's where having someone watch what you're doing can make a big difference. And you'll have a tendency to want to focus on doing the, you know, working harder on the side that's not injured, and that'll just make it worse because you'll be more imbalanced. Now, the other thing you're going to want to focus on is mobility work. You want to make sure everything is moving freely, that the fascia is working well, that the ligaments are working well. I would go into the soft tissue chiropractor. And this was when I was down at Goldschirm in Venice, and I would go over there and all the big bodybuilder dudes were in there, and they would literally be in there because he was doing fascial release screaming. And I'm like, what babies, what babies these big guys are. But I would go in there and have him work through this to make sure that I was, you know, not building up scar tissue, that I had fascial release, that everything was moving freely. And so you want to make sure that you're moving well too. Now what I do is I use a Power Plate. And I'll put information on that in the show notes and a TRX machine. And I will stand on the Power Plate and I will do deep squats using a TRX to assist me and one-legged squats and pistol style squats using a TRX on the Power Plate so that I'm working more and really helping to put a lot of mobility into the joint and then nutrition into the joint with that vibration from the Power Plate. The other thing is to keep moving and that's where some low impact cardio. Now I do like a little bit of jumping for the strain strain it puts on your bones. But, you know, see what you're able to do depending on what's going on with your joints. But I love walking and cycling so that you get that circulation without all the wear and tear. And what I did when I was rehabbing from my knee injuries was I got into the pool, and I literally went and had this woman, Linda Huey, who trained the Olympic teams in the pool— I went and had her teach me. She killed me. You know, if you think, oh, the pool's a wimpy workout— no, it's not. And It was a way that I could add in jumping and power moves. At the time, I wasn't able to do that any other way. So the pool may be your best bet for some of these things as well. And I don't like the pool solely as a workout because I want the, um, gravity and the stress on my joints and my bones for, um, bone health. But I like it as part of my training as well. So that can be amazing there. So check out that, that's a great way to add in some balance and some power moves. And For me, I wanna think about lifting at least heavy, at least twice a week, and then getting in some daily walking for that joint integrity. And if you can add in a rucking vest and just continue to increase the weight on the rucking vest, even better. The other thing that I love here is I will do hot yoga, and I really love hot yoga for mobility work cuz your joints are nice and warm. I also love to do sauna after weights cuz it's great and anabolic. Pre-weights or the next day after a hard workout, I love a cold plunge. I don't love it. I'm lying. I don't love it, but I do a cold plunge to help with, uh, more healing and reducing inflammation. So that's another thing you can think of.
