Around 2 Hours of Weekly Strength Training Is Best for Longevity, Study Finds

A 30-year study indicates that weekly strength training for 90 to 120 minutes has serious benefits for lowering risk of death, with no further benefit found above that duration

While the health benefits of aerobic exercise have long been uplifted, strength training is increasingly getting its moment to shine, too. We research further supports the potential long-term health value of resistance workouts.

A recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) found that 90 to 120 minutes of strength training per week was tied to significantly lower risks of cardiovascular and neurological disease deaths, with no further benefit above 120 minutes.

Researchers analyzed 30 years of data from 147,374 participants (31,540 men and 115,834 women) from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and two Nurses’ Health Studies. The average age of the participants was 54 upon their entry in the study, and 35,798 study participants died during the 30-year duration.

Participants were quizzed every two years on the amount of time they spent on strength training and aerobic exercise every week for up to 30 years, with resistance movement defined as exercises using weights or body weight, such as press-ups, squats and lunges, and cardiovascular exercises including brisk walking, running, jogging, swimming, cycling, tennis, squash, strenuous outdoor work and stair climbing.

Roughly three quarters (74%) of participants did more than the recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic exercise, while nearly half (46%) of participants did some strength training.

Key findings included a 13% lower risk of death from any cause among those who strength trained 90 to 120 minutes weekly, while a reduced risk of cancer was seen only at lower levels of activity — 1-29 minutes per week (21% lower) and 30-59 minutes per week (18% lower).

The study authors also looked at the effects of strength training in tandem with cardiovascular exercise. Aerobic activity alone at any level above 7.5 MET hours per week (a physiological measurement of the energy expended during an activity) was associated with a 26-43% lower risk of death.

But the lowest risk was observed among those with both high aerobic activity and strength training levels every week: those hitting 30-44 MET hours of aerobic exercise plus 60-119 minutes of strength training per week saw a 45% lower risk of death, and 53-58% lower risks among those with over 45 MET hours/week of aerobic activity, regardless of strength training level.

That comes as no surprise, with research from earlier this year indicating that a varied exercise routine is best for longevity. Those findings suggest that combining cardio with strength training and sports, along with plenty of walking, seems to be the ideal way to structure an exercise routine with a long lifespan in mind.

Lower levels of strength training also saw benefits in the BJSM study, especially when starting from zero. Compared with participants hitting fewer than 7.5 MET hours per week of aerobic exercise and no strength training, those doing 1-59 and 60-119 minutes per week of strength training alone had a 7-11% lower risk of death.

Despite the encouraging findings, the study authors did acknowledge notable limitations to the research, such as the self-reported nature of the data that could lead to inaccuracies, the exclusion of activities such as calisthenics and Pilates, and no specified duration of each exercise session or the intensity of strength training.

“Our findings on different dose-response relationships between long-term resistance training with all-cause and cause-specific mortality suggest that different amounts of resistance training may be needed to optimize benefits across outcomes,” the authors noted.

“The observed pattern that adding resistance training further reduced mortality risk across all levels of aerobic activity up to 45 MET hours/week supports current recommendations encouraging both types of activity to maximise mortality benefits,” they wrote.

The findings are good news for operators who have been capitalizing on the ongoing strength training boom, adding to the body of research that points to the benefits behind weightlifting for all ages.