Heart-pumping exercise goes a good distance toward achieving robust health, but adding strength training to your regimen stands out as the key to living a good longer life. That's the conclusion of a giant study published online on October 17, 2022. JAMA Network Open.. Researchers assessed the physical activity of greater than 115,000 people age 65 and older as a part of the continuing National Health Interview Survey. They compared exercise data with mortality over about eight years. Regardless of how much aerobic exercise they did, participants who did strength training two to 6 times per week were less more likely to die from any cause through the study period than those that didn’t. Did low strength training. Those who did a minimum of two sessions of strength training plus 2.5 hours of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic activity per week were 30 percent less more likely to die during that point. The study was observational and didn’t conclusively prove that strength training or aerobic exercise made people live longer. Strength training includes activities akin to lifting weights, using resistance bands, doing push-ups or sit-ups, or digging within the garden.
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