The True Purpose of Strength Training: More Than Muscular Gains

Resistance exercise is known to increase muscle mass & size, but there are far more benefits to resistance training than just that. Improved mobility, fall prevention, improved cognitive function, increased cancer survival, improvements to metabolic health (including diabetes), and reduction in all-cause mortality, are the real reasons you should be lifting weights. They are also the reasons you should prioritize strength training over aerobic training.

Aerobic training seems to be the primary recommended form of exercise, with specific guidelines from the American Heart Association. You may have heard that you should partake in 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise per week. There is emerging evidence that shows resistance training alone is equal or superior to aerobic training alone, when it comes to improving ones overall health & quality of life. It is recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine to partake in a resistance exercise program two nonconsecutive days per week, performing one set of each exercise for 8-12 repetitions (This is exactly what we do here at Exercise Institute). Remember that more is not always better. Those who reported resistance exercise beyond 130 minutes per week resulted in an increased risk of all-cause, cardiovascular & cancer mortality.

With this information, we can see that it doesn't require much time to reap the benefits of resistance exercise. The biggest barrier to resistance training is actually not time, it is risk of injury. To receive the greatest benefit from resistance training, you need to perform each exercise with a high degree of effort, or to momentary muscular failure. This creates a certain level of risk. In order to keep this type of exercise safe, and limit the risk of injury, it should be performed slowly as well.

Although we perform exercise properly to reduce the risk of injury, injuries may still occur in our daily lives. We have overuse injuries from sports, hobbies or our jobs. Resistance training can not only help you during the recovery process from such injuries or surgeries, it can actually help accelerate the recovery process. Those adults who already participated in a resistance exercise program prior to their injury or surgery, recovered much quicker than those who did not. This is something that aerobic training alone cannot do.

Overall, the benefits of participation in resistance exercise far outweigh not partaking at all. Participation in resistance exercise alone can increase mobility, physical and cognitive function, improve cancer survival, and manage metabolic health. Resistance exercise should be prioritized over aerobic training in the recommended guidelines. With an average muscle loss of 1-3% per year in adults over the age of 60, we need to prioritize gaining and maintaining muscular strength to improve overall quality of life and all-cause mortality.

Reference

Abou Sawan, Sidney; Nunes, Everson A.; Lim, Changhyun; McKendry, James; Phillips, Stuart M.. The Health Benefits of Resistance Exercise: Beyond Hypertrophy and Big Weights. Exercise, Sport, and Movement 1(1):e00001, January 2023. | DOI: 10.1249/ESM.0000000000000001