I've been coaching my 72-year-old dad like he's 30: here's the one exercise that moves the needle most for upper-body strength and mobility
A fitness coach shares a specific exercise called the martini glass that has been effective for improving upper-body strength and mobility in his 72-year-old father. The movement involves holding a bar or band overhead in a Y-shape and drawing the elbows down behind the back to test shoulder range of motion. Proper form requires engaging the core and keeping the shoulders down to avoid arching the lower back during the controlled repetitions.
- ▪The coach has been training his 72-year-old father since 2020, incorporating weight lifting and mobility sessions into his routine.
- ▪The martini glass exercise uses a pole, light barbell, or resistance band to replicate the shape of a martini glass with the arms.
- ▪The movement involves lowering the bar down the back by bending the elbows and then pressing it back up to the starting position.
- ▪Recommended training volume is 6 to 8 controlled repetitions for 2 to 3 sets.
- ▪A common form error is thrusting the hips forward and flaring the ribs, which causes the lower back to arch.
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| Original publisher | Tom's Guide |
| Canonical URL | https://www.tomsguide.com/wellness/workouts/ive-been-coaching-my-72-year-old-dad-like-hes-30-heres-the-one-exercise-that-moves-the-needle-most-for-upper-body-strength-and-mobility |
| Publication time | Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:30:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-10-04T06:37:56.148Z |
| Last seen | 2026-10-04T06:37:56.148Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | _fofmuhPYi8l · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Wellness Fitness Workouts I've been coaching my 72-year-old dad like he's 30: here's the one exercise that moves the needle most for upper-body strength and mobility Features By Sam Hopes Published 4 October 2026 We swear by this exercise When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Getty Images) Copy link Facebook X Reddit Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter I've been training my dad since 2020, and alongside two mobility sessions a week, he lifts weights once a week and keeps a very active lifestyle.
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