By Lou Schuler
Aug. 31, 2022 – People who lift weights understand they’re playing a long game.
Once they get past the “newbie gains” – the quick and exciting increases in muscle strength and size – it takes time, effort, and patience to keep making progress.
Whether they know it or not, they’re also playing the longevity game.
A growing body of research shows that resistance training adds years to both lifespan and “healthspan” – the period of life when we’re in good health.
A 2022 study review from Japanese researchers linked “muscle-strengthening activities” to a 15% lower risk of dying.
Resistance exercise was also linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (17%), cancer (12%), and diabetes (17%).
We’ve known for a long time that strength is an excellent predictor of future health. Lots of research has shown that, if all else is equal, stronger men and women have a much lower risk of dying during a given period than people with less strength.
This new research shows that strength training offers similar protection, regardless of the results of that training. So even if you don’t think you’re getting as strong or as lean as you’d like to be, you should keep it up – because chances are, you’re still helping your health in a big way.
How Strength Training Helps as You Age
For longevity, strength training seems to be especially effective for older adults, says Tufts University professor Roger Fielding, PhD, who’s been studying the role of exercise in the aging process since the early 1990s.
“With aging, we see clear deficits in muscle function and bone health,” he says. “That all can be slowed, attenuated, or reversed with appropriate exercise.”
His concept of “appropriate” has changed a lot in the past 3 decades. “When I first started studying this stuff, we would try to give people a very formalized prescription” for strength training, he says.
That strength training prescription typically included a lot of sets (three per exercise), moderate reps (eight to 12 per set), and relatively heavy weights. It also required professional supervision in a well-equipped gym, which was both unappealing and impractical for most of the target population.
“What I’ve learned is that even lower-intensity strength training, at home, without a lot of