In a decades-long study, 90 minutes or more of weekly resistance training showed the strongest association with lower mortality. Digest
Most exercise guidelines recommend resistance training, but they give little detail on how much may be optimal for longevity. In a new study, researchers investigated whether different self-reported amounts of weekly resistance training were linked to fewer deaths overall and from specific causes.
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The analysis included 147,374 adults from three long-running US studies of health professionals, including 31,540 men and 115,834 women. For the main analysis, researchers grouped participants by their average reported weekly resistance training into six categories, from none to 120 minutes or more per week, and examined how each category related to deaths from any cause, cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurological disease, and other causes over periods of up to 30 years. To reduce the chance that low activity reflected preexisting illness, the researchers excluded people who already had cancer, heart disease, or stroke before the analysis began and linked each exercise report only to deaths occurring at least two years later. To better isolate the association between resistance training and mortality, the study also accounted for aerobic activity and major demographic, lifestyle, diet, and health-history factors.
- About 90 to 119 minutes of resistance training per week stood out for death from any cause. Compared with people reporting no resistance training, those in this range had a 13% lower rate of death over the study period, with no clear added benefit above 120 minutes per week.
- The same 90 to 119 minutes per week was associated with a 19% lower rate of death from cardiovascular disease and a 27% lower rate of death from neurological disease compared with no resistance training.
- Cancer mortality was clearly lower only at smaller amounts of resistance training: 9% lower at 1 to 29 minutes per week and 12% lower at 30 to 59 minutes per week, with no clear reduction at higher amounts.
- Compared with people reporting low aerobic activity and no resistance training, those reporting high aerobic activity plus 60 to 119 minutes of resistance training had an approximately 45% lower rate of death from any cause over the study period.
- Aerobic activity alone showed a stronger association than resistance training alone, so the findings do not suggest substituting weight training for aerobic exercise.
The findings fit with the idea that aerobic activity and resistance training may complement each other by supporting health in partly different ways. Aerobic activity may be more closely tied to better circulation, blood lipids, and cardiorespiratory fitness, while resistance training may be more closely tied to improved glucose metabolism, body composition, and muscle strength. Why cancer mortality was lower only at smaller amounts of resistance training is unclear. The pattern may reflect real biological differences, but it could also be shaped by unmeasured training details. In addition, the cancer-specific results are less precise than the overall mortality estimate because they are based on fewer deaths.
The main limitation is that this was an observational study based on self-reported exercise, so it cannot prove that resistance training itself lowered mortality. Still, the findings support including both aerobic and resistance exercise in physical activity guidelines. In Aliquot #113, I discuss whether resistance training is a type of aerobic exercise.