You don’t need to live in the gym to make strength training worthwhile. A huge long-term study suggests that 90 minutes to about two hours of resistance training per week may be enough to matter.
The evidence is solid, too. The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, followed nearly 150,000 adults for up to 30 years. People who regularly did moderate amounts of strength training had a lower risk of dying during the study period, especially from cardiovascular and neurological diseases. The bottom line: cardio is important, but muscles deserve their own place in the weekly routine.
A Modest Weekly Habit
The study used data from three long-running projects: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Nurses’ Health Study II.
Researchers followed 147,374 men and women for up to 30 years. Participants were 54 years old on average when they entered this analysis, placing the study largely in midlife and older adulthood. They reported their weekly exercise habits every two years. Strength training included lifting weights and body-weight exercises such as pushups, squats, and lunges.
Over the study period, 35,798 participants died.
After adjusting for factors such as lifestyle, health, and aerobic activity, the clearest benefit appeared among people who did 90 to 119 minutes of strength training per week. Compared with people who did none, they had a 13% lower risk of death from any cause, a 19% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, and a 27% lower risk of death from neurological disease.
Doing more did not seem to add much. Above 120 minutes per week, the researchers did not find additional mortality benefits, suggesting the gains may plateau rather than keep rising with more time in the weight room.
Cardio Still Counts
This doesn’t mean you should just do muscle training.
Aerobic exercise (cardio) alone was linked to a lower risk of death. But people who combined high levels of aerobic activity with regular strength training had the lowest risks in the study. That combination fits with public health advice that urges adults to train the heart, lungs, and muscles.
In other words, this is not a “weights versus cardio” story. It is a “please do both” story.
Of course, the fact that workouts are good for you isn’t exactly a new idea; the fact that you should mix cardio and muscle training also isn’t new. But this study quantified the workout time, and points to a realistic routine, one that people could actually implement in their day to day.
A couple of short sessions spread across the week could get many people close to the range linked with the clearest benefit. That could mean weights, machines, resistance bands, or body-weight exercises. You don’t need to train like an athlete, just use your muscles.
That matters more with age. As people get older, they tend to lose muscle and bone strength. That can affect balance, mobility, and independence. Resistance exercise helps preserve the strength needed for ordinary life: climbing stairs, carrying groceries, getting up from a chair, and recovering after illness.
The message is simple enough to be useful. Keep walking, cycling, swimming, or doing whatever gets your heart rate up. But add some resistance work too. About 90 minutes to two hours a week may be a very manageable investment in long-term health.
The study was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
