💪 🎅 Strength training and longevity
✅ This overview study showed that participation in strength-inducing exercise lowered risk of mortality, total cancer and diabetes by 10–17%.
👀 Interestingly, more was not always better as most of these associations showed an inverse J shape curve, meaning that 30-60 min/week of strength exercises was optimal, but more (about 2h/week) was actually deleterious for longevity markers.
‼️These are all associations. Loyal readers of the page know that we are pretty sceptical about such studies as they can never show causation.
➡️ For instance, most of the subjects included in the studies were older. Logical, as older folks tend to pass away more and are more susceptible to disease than their younger counterparts. So, this study does not say much about risk of early mortality in younger, or more experienced lifters. Likely, the dose can be much higher as the body is more resilient and recovers faster.
😎 Cool additional finding from this study; combining strength exercise with aerobic activities lowered mortality risk more than doing strength or aerobic activities in isolation. CrossFit doesn’t seem so bad after all for long-term health. 🤩
Read the full study here, it is free: Momma et al., PMID: 35228201
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