{"id":753867,"date":"2026-06-22T15:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T15:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/753867\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T15:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T15:58:08","slug":"this-is-how-long-you-should-strength-train-every-week-to-live-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/753867\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is How Long You Should Strength Train Every Week to Live Longer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spend five minutes on FitTok and you\u2019d think longevity requires a cold plunge<\/a> at dawn, peptides<\/a> aplenty, and enough weekly training volume to qualify as a Navy SEAL. The reality, however, is less dramatic. If you want to live longer, recent research from Harvard offers a surprisingly reassuring message: Your lifting routine<\/a> is probably a lot closer to the ideal for longevity<\/a> than your algorithm would lead you to believe.<\/p>\n

Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine<\/a>, this study compiled data from three cohorts of nearly 150,000 adults\u2014most of them middle-aged<\/a>\u2014spanning 30 years. Compared to people who didn\u2019t lift at all, those who logged 90 to 120 minutes a week saw the biggest longevity payoff: a 13% lower risk of death from any cause, a 19% lower risk of cardiovascular death, and a 27% lower risk of death from neurological diseases. That\u2019s just three or four half-hour workouts, or even two 45-minute sessions. Perhaps surprisingly, anything more than that didn\u2019t appear to move the needle. After about two hours a week, the longevity perks plateaued.<\/p>\n

The strength training and longevity connection<\/p>\n

Your muscles do a lot more than help you PR your deadlift<\/a> or make your sleeves fit tighter. \u201cMuscle is not just structural tissue; it is your body\u2019s largest endocrine organ,\u201d says Vonda Wright, MD<\/a>, an orthopedic surgeon and the creator of Skeletal Longevity. \u201cEvery time you contract a muscle against resistance, it releases signaling molecules called myokines<\/a> that travel through your bloodstream and reduce systemic inflammation<\/a>\u2014the root cause of virtually every chronic disease of aging.\u201d You can also expect better blood sugar control, stronger bones, improved metabolic health, and then some.<\/p>\n

Plus, resistance training protects against the gradual loss of strength and independence that tends to accompany aging. \u201cIt allows us to interact with our environment more consistently, more comfortably, and more capably,\u201d adds Alex Rothstein, EdD, MS, CSCS<\/a>, exercise physiologist and coordinator of the exercise Science program at New York Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n

As for those cardiovascular benefits? The study results might be surprising since we tend to think that protecting your heart requires running on a treadmill or swimming laps. Yet according to Dr. Wright, long-term resistance training remodels the vascular system, making arteries more elastic and compliant. This ultimately helps to manage blood pressure<\/a> and reduce heart attack risk. \u201cIt also reduces visceral fat<\/a>: the dangerous inflammatory fat that wraps around your organs and drives cardiovascular disease,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Dr. Wright says that strength training may also protect the brain because working muscles release compounds that stimulate the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Experts call this protein Miracle-Gro for your brain<\/a> since it helps neurons grow and communicate more effectively.<\/p>\n

Key takeaways<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not news that lifting weights can help you live a longer, healthier life. What is, however, is how little it appears to take. If you already lift on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a half-hour after work, consider this a permission slip to stop confusing \u2018more\u2019 with \u2018better.\u2019 According to this study, your ROI starts shrinking beyond the 90-to-120 minute range.<\/p>\n

But before you watch the clock like a hawk, you should think of the range as a useful benchmark rather than a prescription. Even the researchers advise interpreting the results with a grain of salt. \u201cImportantly, 90 to 120 minutes should not be interpreted as a strict target or threshold, given we did not have data on specific types of resistance training, intensity, and number of sets,\u201d say study co-authors Yiwen Zhang, PhD<\/a>, postdoctoral research fellow and Edward Giovannucci, MD<\/a>, professor of nutrition and epidemiology, both at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Future research is necessary to dial in on these parameters. Nonetheless, there are a few things you can keep in mind when building out your own workout routine to promote longevity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spend five minutes on FitTok and you\u2019d think longevity requires a cold plunge at dawn, peptides aplenty, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,84,51617,12365],"class_list":["post-753867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-life-advice","tag-working-out"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}