People who engaged in just 1 hour of resistance training per week had a 30% lower risk of metabolic syndrome.

Doing both resistance and aerobic exercises provided the greatest benefits as the best exercise modality for the prevention of metabolic syndrome.

This large cohort study found that resistance exercise, independent of aerobic exercise, significantly decreases the risk of development of metabolic syndrome compared with no resistance exercise in a middle-aged relatively healthy population. The data was adjusted for other factors including aerobic exercise, smoking, alcohol intake, BMI, hypertension, diabetes, and abnormal electrocardiographic findings.