Zoe Saldaña swapped Pilates for weights at 48 - here's her full-body workout for better strength and mobility

Zoe Saldaña's priority is strength training for the future. Weights in the gym, working with a personal trainer, and doing compound exercises (working multiple muscles at once) are the actress's focuses as she approaches 50.

Not least because she's playing a character at peak fitness, about the same age as her, in Yellowstone director Taylor Sheridan's Lioness. Ahead of the third season, Zoe told US Today: "Weight training is essential, especially for women of a certain age. It gives you strength you never thought you had, and that gives me so much confidence. It's like you can do difficult things. Building muscle for [character] Joe inspired me."

It didn't always look this way, she told the Wall Street Journal. "I was a big fan of Pilates for like 20 years. Now that I'm in my 40s, these last two or three years [I have had a] discovery and education around weights. Twenty years ago, I would have been against it. I just felt like we didn't really need it if we were doing cardio," she says.

"Rediscovering techniques that you would have otherwise disregarded" has been really interesting, she says, at an age "when your body needs a little more of a shake up and a lot more attention".

Taking to Instagram ahead of the show's latest season, Zoe said: "Showing up to stay strong. For me. For my family and for all women. 💪🏽" and shared her latest gym workout.

Zoe Saldaña's weights workout

Single-leg deadlifts

Single-leg exercises are among the best glute exercises you can do. They boost lower-body strength, and they improve balance. Working one leg at a time means you have to engage your core and use the tiny stabilising muscles in the ankles, knees, and hips.

Here's how to do it:

• Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, then step forward on one leg and put your body weight through this front leg only.
• Keep a soft bend in your front leg, hinge back (push your buttocks to the back of the room), and grab the kettlebell off the floor with the hand that's opposite your standing leg.
• Make sure your back stays straight and your hips stay facing forward.
• Push through your front leg only to come to standing.
• Repeat the movement.

Squats

Zoe turns a typical squat exercise up a notch by standing with one foot on a step. The added height means she can come down lower than normal and get more of a stretch through her glutes and hamstrings.

Here's how to do it:

• Set up two steps, grab a dumbbell by the plate, and place one of your feet on each of the platforms so you're comfortable.
• Hold the dumbbell between your legs, lowering it between the platforms.
• Complete the squat as normal, as if you're sitting down on a chair behind you.
• At the bottom of the movement, push through your feet to come to standing.

Hip thrusts

Hip thrusters require a barbell, two plates, and if you want to really feel the burn, a resistance band wrapped just above the knees. This forces all the muscles in your glutes to continually work through the movement, instead of taking a break at the bottom.

If you're doing this workout at home, you can take a similar resistance band to Zoe's and do a glute bridge instead. This works all the same muscles.

Here's how to do it:

• To set up for the exercise, place your shoulder blades on a bench behind you and see where your feet naturally sit when you bend your knees to a right angle. This is your foot placement.
• Roll the barbell to your hips.
• Bracing your core, push through your feet to bring the barbell up so your back lays horizontal with the bench. Keen your chin tucked in, and squeeze your glutes at the top.
• Slowly lower back down.

Expert tip: If this foot placement doesn't quite feel right, sit with your back against the bench and straighten your legs. Where your knees are is the perfect foot placement, so make a mark on the floor in this area and use it as a marker for your feet.

Swapping Pilates for strength workouts meant a whole new routine for Zoe, but her personal trainer, Elena Ferretti, says it's not always a perfect one.

Writing in the caption of her own Instagram post, Elena said: "Training doesn't happen when everything is perfect. It happens between calls, chaos, and real life.

"And yes - even a short session counts when it’s done with intention." A lesson we could all learn!