How Little Strength Training Can You Get Away With?

Buff It Out: When people hear about exercising for health, they tend to assume cardio exercise is the only type that confers benefits like a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. Strength training is just for building muscle, right? Not so! Resistance training offers a swath of health benefits, too. But until recently, no one has really studied how much resistance training is needed to realize those benefits.

The Study: When researchers analyzed data from seven studies, they found that resistance training reduced the risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Another large-scale analysis echoes the findings. What’s interesting about the study is that the biggest impacts were seen with just 30 to 60 minutes of strength training per week. Past that point, the returns were diminishing for all conditions with the exception of diabetes. 

The Takeaway: It doesn’t take much strength training to have big impacts on your health. Just one or two 30-minute workouts per week could do the trick. 

You Should Know: These studies are observational, which means they simply establish correlation (not causation). This means that even though the biggest benefits were found at around 60 minutes of strength training per week, more could confer additional benefits. Don’t think of 60 minutes as a cap — more like a baseline goal.