Turns out the sweet spot in the weight room may be shorter than a lot of people think.
A new study found that about 90 to 120 minutes of resistance training a week was linked to the biggest drop in the risk of death from all causes. Researchers followed more than 147,000 adults for up to 30 years.
The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, looked at the long-term effects of resistance training, including weightlifting and other muscle-strengthening exercises. Researchers tracked participants’ exercise habits over several decades and compared them with health outcomes.
Compared with people who did no resistance training, those who averaged 90 to 119 minutes a week had a 13 percent lower risk of death from any cause, a 19 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 27 percent lower risk of death from neurological diseases.
That works out to about three 30- to 40-minute strength-training sessions each week.
Researchers found the benefits appeared to level off after about two hours of resistance training a week, meaning more time in the weight room did not translate into significantly greater longevity benefits.
The study also found the lowest overall mortality risk among people who combined resistance training with regular aerobic exercise, such as walking, running, cycling or swimming. Researchers said the combination consistently produced better results than either form of exercise alone.
For cancer-related deaths, benefits showed up mainly among people doing lower amounts of resistance training, between one and 59 minutes a week. Researchers did not find additional reductions in cancer mortality at higher levels of strength training.
The study followed participants from three large health studies and documented nearly 36,000 deaths during the follow-up period, making it one of the largest and longest analyses of resistance training and longevity to date.
Researchers concluded that moderate resistance training, combined with regular aerobic exercise, may offer the greatest long-term health benefits.
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