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This exercise 'sweet spot' is linked to greater longevity
Gretchen Reynolds, (c) 2026 , The Washington PostUpdated Tue, 16 June 2026 at 5:00 PM SGT
5 min read
This exercise 'sweet spot' is linked to greater longevity
What's the ideal amount of weight training if you'd like to live long and well?
In a new study published this month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, scientists set out to find the "sweet spot" for resistance exercise and longevity.
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Gathering 30 years' worth of data about exercise habits from more than 147,000 men and women, they looked for associations between the number of minutes people spent lifting weights each week and how long they lived.
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According to the results, any amount of resistance exercise, even a few minutes a week, was associated with a lower risk of premature death than never lifting at all, including among people who regularly walked, ran or did other aerobic exercise.
The links were especially strong for cardiovascular disease and neurological conditions. The data showed that people who lifted weights, no matter how infrequently, were less likely to die from heart attacks or Alzheimer's disease compared with people who did no resistance training.