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Madonna, 67, Says Her Body Has Changed the Way She Moves

The singer says knee damage forced her to rethink her workouts while making a new dance album

Donna Freydkin,

AARP

Published June 24, 2026

madonna posing with a microphone in a silver jacket, fishnet stockings and boots in a promotional image

Madonna performs during a surprise concert in New York’s Times Square on June 4, 2026. In a new interview, the singer, 67, says knee problems have changed the way she moves and works out.

Santiago Felipe/GC Images/Getty Images

Key takeaways

Madonna says years of dancing in high heels, running on pavement and doing Ashtanga yoga have contributed to her knee problems.
She says she no longer does some joint-stressing workouts, including trampoline work and dance cardio.
The singer also discussed family loss, her daughter Lourdes and her new album, Confessions II, out July 3.

Madonna is still moving. She’s just moving differently.

The singer, 67, told Interview magazine in a story published on June 22 that decades of dancing, touring and training have changed what she can ask of herself physically. She is getting ready to release Confessions II on July 3, and even that record was built around movement. The album runs an hour and five minutes, the length of her workout, and she said she chose the songs by how much they made her move.

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“Well, I have a bad knee now,” she said. “I have no cartilage in it, thanks to dancing for so long in high heels and running on pavement and doing Ashtanga yoga.”

Until about a year ago, Madonna said, she was still jumping on trampolines, doing dance cardio and putting what she called “loading” on her joints. “Can’t do that anymore,” she said.

Now her routine includes Peloton bikes, the VersaClimber, high-intensity circuit training, outdoor biking and dance.

According to Madonna: A Rebel Life, the performer started studying ballet in her teens and earned a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan. But she dropped out and moved to New York to become a dancer, before 1984’s Like a Virgin made her one of the defining pop stars of the 1980s. She turned movement into part of the music: the precision of “Vogue,” the athletic force of the Blond Ambition tour, the club pulse of Confessions on a Dance Floor. Her music earned her seven Grammy awards and 28 nominations.

madonna doing a handstand onstage in 2004

Madonna takes the stage in London during her “Re-Invention” world tour in 2004. In a new interview, she looks back on how years of dancing, touring and training have affected her body.

Yui Mok - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

In 2015 Madonna told the Associated Press about her punishing, varied workout routine, which included yoga, metabolic interval training, jumping rope and BodyArt, a functional fitness method that blends strength, flexibility, breathing and dance-inspired movement. “I like to mix it up, keep things interesting, shock my body,” she said. A decade later, she is still training hard, but more cautiously.

Madonna also spoke to Interview about the pull of family at this stage of her life. She has six children: Lourdes Leon, 29; Rocco Ritchie, 25; David Banda, 20; Mercy James, 20; and twins Stella and Estere, 13. She said that she moved to London to work on new music and because her family follows the Chelsea Football Club.

“I never stay anywhere more than three years,” she said. “I get sick of it.” She said she has to figure out schools, work and community in London. “Constantly staying out of my comfort zone, and not sinking into comfort, keeps me feeling alive,” she said.

Her family also shaped the new record. Madonna said her daughter Lourdes, whom she calls Lola, approached her about writing a song together “as a way to heal our relationship.”

She added, “It was a really important moment, and it solidified the idea that now is the time to make this record.”

The music also came out of grief. “It’s hard for me to write a song about nothing,” she said. “I have to tell a story. So I wrote about a lot of family trauma, and then we started making dance music.”

Fitness that fits you

Madonna said knee problems have changed the way she works out, a reminder that fitness routines often need to shift with age. Find AARP’s beginner-friendly cardio, strength, yoga and balance videos here.

The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Donna Freydkin has spent 10-plus years interviewing celebrities for major publications, and has written for a variety of outlets such as USA Today, Allure, Yahoo! and CNN covering topics such as films, family and favorite meals.