Spending as little as half an hour each week on strength building exercises is linked to a lower risk of premature death.

Researchers have been studying the effects of strength training for more than 40 years and have identified multiple ways it can benefit older adults, including maintaining muscle mass, improving mobility, and increasing the healthy years of life. 

Age-related mobility limitations are a fact of life for many older adults. Studies have shown that about 30% of adults over age 70 have trouble with walking, getting up out of a chair, or climbing stairs. In addition to making everyday tasks difficult, mobility limitations are also linked to higher rates of falls, chronic disease, nursing home admission, and mortality.

A big culprit for losing our physical abilities as we grow older is the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength, which is called sarcopenia. Typically, muscle mass and strength increase steadily from birth and reach their peak at around 30 to 35 years of age. After that, muscle power and performance decline slowly and linearly at first, and then faster after age 65 for women and 70 for men. Resistance training is the most important component in combating sarcopenia, because it builds muscle and reduces the loss of muscle mass.

When you do resistance or strength training, very important chains of molecules that relay signals between cells are affected, and these changes linger in the body for hours after exercise, building up a cumulative, positive effect. The more weight we contract against, the faster our bodies burn through reserves of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a molecule that carries energy to cells. As we lift weights or do other demanding exercises, our ATP reserves are replenished through a complex, coordinated metabolic and chemical response that cascades through the entire body, including sparking short-term chemical changes in the DNA of muscle tissue that make them more tuned to specific proteins supporting sugar and fat metabolism.

Incorporating weightlifting into an exercise and diet intervention for older adults with obesity yields better results than diet or aerobic exercise alone. Combining the two types of exercise had additive effects—so they were better together than separate.

Muscle-strengthening activities are associated with lower risk of mortality and major non-communicable diseases, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis of numerous studies. Muscle-strengthening activities were associated with a 10–17% lower risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD), total cancer, diabetes and lung cancer. The maximum risk reduction (approximately 10–20%) was found at approximately 30–60 minutes per week of muscle-strengthening activities. Muscle-strengthening activities were associated with lower risk independent of aerobic activities.

If you’re in the habit of doing a 20- to 30-minute brisk walk or other moderate exercise most days of the week, that’s fantastic. But a lot of people neglect the recommendation in the federal Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans to do muscle-strengthening exercises at least two days a week. While the guidelines don’t suggest a specific amount of time to spend on this effort, evidence from a new study suggests that 30 to 60 minutes per week is a good goal. Compared with people who did no strength training, those who did a half-hour to one full hour of muscle-building exercises per week had a 10% to 20% reduction in the risk of early death.

Physical activity guidelines often include a mix of aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities. Muscle strengthening activities can also be referred to as strength, weights or resistance exercise and are defined as an activity that includes the use of weight machines, exercise bands, hand-held weights or own-body weight. Recent data suggest that only 10%–30% of adults meet the muscle-strengthening activity recommendations. While focus has previously been placed on musculoskeletal benefits, research has also found muscle-strengthening activities are independently associated with a variety of improved health outcomes—including decreases in all-cause mortality, and improvements in cardiometabolic and mental health.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), adults should also do muscle-strengthening activities at moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week, as these provide significant health benefits.

While I enjoy a variety of aerobic exercise—including walking, cycling and hiking—I haven’t yet found a strength training routine that I can stick to on a regular basis. After reading that adding strength training offers a variety of health benefits over aerobic exercise alone, I plan to incorporate 30-60 minutes of resistance training to my routine each week. I plan to start with body-weight exercises—such as push-ups, sit-ups and squats. I’ll let you know how it goes. If you have a favorite body-weight exercise, please mention it in a comment below.