Just 90 minutes a week of strength training may go a long way toward helping you live longer.
“A few minutes of functional strength training per day appears sufficient to capture most of the mortality benefits observed in this study,” he says.
Study Tracked Fitness Training Habits for Up to 30 Years
The study analyzed data from nearly 150,000 adults from three long-running U.S. health studies. Participants were 54 on average when they joined, and researchers followed them for up to 30 years. Subjects reported in every two years on their strength training and aerobic exercise habits.
Researchers defined strength training as exercises using weights or body weight — things like pushups, squats, lunges, and traditional weightlifting. Aerobic exercise included cardio activities like walking, running, swimming, cycling, tennis, and stair climbing.
Over the study period, researchers recorded about 36,000 deaths and examined whether mortality risk was linked to long-term strength training habits, both alone and in combination with aerobic activity.
Strength Training 90 to 120 Minutes a Week Tied the Lowest Risk of Death
After accounting for factors that could influence health outcomes, researchers found that adults who averaged 90 to 119 minutes of strength training per week had a 13 percent lower risk of death from any cause compared with those who did no strength training at all.
The same amount of weekly strength training was also tied to:
“For people who are less active, the key message is that small amounts can still matter. Building a routine gradually may be more important than trying to do a lot at once,” say study authors Edward Giovannucci, MD, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology, and Yiwen Zhang, PhD, postdoctoral research fellow, both at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
Adding Cardio Enhanced the Longevity Benefits
Participants who regularly combined cardio and strength training experienced some of the lowest mortality risks observed in the study — up to 45 percent lower than those who did neither activity.
For cancer risk in particular, the benefits appeared strongest at lower levels of strength training plus cardio. Participants who got 1 to 29 minutes of weekly strength training in addition to cardio had a 21 percent lower risk of cancer death, while those who got 30 to 59 minutes had an 18 percent lower risk.
“Many people assume that more is always better, but biological systems rarely behave that way,” Wisløff says. “For health and longevity, moderate amounts of exercise often provide most of the benefit.”
These findings also highlight the importance of both muscular strength and cardiorespiratory fitness for long-term health, Wisløff says.
“The combination of regular aerobic exercise and moderate amounts of strength training appears to provide substantial protection against premature death. This supports the idea that aerobic fitness and muscle strength are complementary rather than competing health attributes.”
This Study Has Some Limitations
While the study was large and assessed long-term physical activity behaviors rather than relying on a single snapshot in time — it was observational, so it can’t prove that strength training directly caused the lower mortality risk.
Participants were mostly white middle-age and older healthcare professionals, which means the findings may not apply to other groups. Finally, the study relied on participants self-reporting how much exercise they got, which can introduce errors.
You Don’t Need a Gym Membership to Live Longer
Resistance training doesn’t have to involve substantial financial investment, says Gregore Mielke, PhD, a behavioral epidemiologist at the University of Queensland’s School of Public Health in Brisbane, Australia, who has researched the link between exercise and mortality.
“The key is to find approaches that are meaningful, practical, and adaptable to individual circumstances,” he says
Don’t feel like you have to go into the gym, or even invest in weights. Everyday items like food cans, filled water bottles, or bags loaded with books can all be used for simple resistance exercises at home.
You also don’t have to get all 90 minutes in one go. You could do strength training 30 to 40 minutes three times per week, or 15 to 20 minutes most days of the week.
For many people, starting at home with body-weight exercises, resistance bands, light weights, or even common household objects may be a feasible and approachable way to begin, the Harvard researchers say: “The key point is not the location, but whether the activity challenges the muscles.”
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