Do you do an hour and a half of weights per week? Then you will live longer

Lifting weights has become very fashionable in the world of sports. If a few years ago running became the trend of the moment, now more and more people are signing up for the gym to do strength training. However, unlike aerobic training, which is known to have good consequences for health, until now there was little evidence of the benefits of lifting weights. But that has just changed: a new study has shown that moderate strength training, for 90 to 120 minutes a week, reduces mortality.

The research, from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, uses data from 147,000 participants (31,540 men and 115,834 women) over more than 30 years, and has found that this hour and a half or two of moderate strength exercise can be associated with a 13% reduction in the risk of mortality from any cause. In contrast, lifting weights for more than 120 minutes a week has not been linked to any additional benefit.

According to the study, combining aerobic activity with strength exercises is what leads to a lower mortality risk: this or practicing very high levels of resistance. Separately, both types of exercise make us live longer, but it is when we combine them both that we see more significant results.

Furthermore, the effects of training vary depending on the type of disease: the risk of mortality from cardiovascular diseases is reduced by 19%, a figure that stands at 27% when talking about neurological diseases. As for cancer, things change: the ideal time to reduce the risk while working on strength is less than an hour a week.

According to the study, led by Edward Giovannucci and Yiwen Zhang, the importance of aerobic activity should be emphasized, but the message is that one does not have to choose between one of the two types of physical exercise, but rather they are complementary when it comes to extending life expectancy.

However, the researchers emphasize that more studies are needed to evaluate the effects of physical exercise on other aspects of health and in younger populations, as the average age of the study participants was 54 years. But the large sample size and the follow-up of participants over three decades make the research of great value for relating lower mortality with physical activity.