Regular weightlifting could lower your risk of early death, study finds

Regular exercise with weights is linked to a lower risk of early death from any cause except of cancer, according to a new study.

The research, published in the journal British Journal of Sports Medicine, also found that a weekly exercise routine that includes both weights and aerobic activities could have an additive effect.

Scientists, including those from the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, US, say that while current guidelines associate consistent aerobic exercise with a lower risk of death, until now it has been unclear whether working out with weights might have similar effects.

In the new study, researchers separately and jointly assessed the potential impact of exercising with weights and aerobic activities on the risk of death among older adults.

“Our finding that mortality risk appeared to be lowest for those who participated in both types of exercise provides strong support for current recommendations to engage in both aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities,” the scientists concluded in the study.

“Older adults would probably benefit from adding weightlifting exercises to their physical activity routines.”

To conduct the research, the team drew on data from participants from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial that began in 1993 and includes 154,897 men and women aged 55-74 from 10 different cancer centres in the US.

Over 100,000 participants in the trial were also asked in 2006 if they had exercised with weights over the past year, and if so, how often they had done so.

More than 28,000 of the participants died over the course of the monitoring period, the study noted, which spanned an average of 9.5 years.

The trial participants also noted the frequency and duration of both moderate and vigorous intensity physical activity they underwent over the past year.

They were categorised into four groups based on total minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) – inactive, insufficient aerobic MVPA (1-149 minutes), sufficient (150+ minutes), and highly active with 301 or more minutes of activity.

Nearly a quarter of the respondents reported some weightlifting activity and about 16 per cent said they exercised with weights regularly between one to six times a week.

About a third were sufficiently aerobically active, either meeting or exceeding the guidelines on MVPA, scientists said.

Researchers found from the data that exercising with weights and aerobic MVPA were both independently associated with a lower risk of death from any cause, including cardiovascular disease, but not from cancer.

They say using weights once or twice a week was linked to a 14 per cent lower death risk.

Among people who didn’t exercise with weights, the study found that aerobic MVPA was linked to a 24-34 per cent lower risk of death from any cause, compared with those who reported neither MVPA nor exercising with weights.

The lowest risk of death, researchers say, was among those who reported doing both types of physical activity.

While the study is observational and doesn’t establish cause, scientists say factors including training intensity, training load, and volume might have all influenced the findings.