Experts reveal the bare minimum amount of exercise you need to do to stay strong… and it’s shockingly little

If you spend every night at the gym trying to get big and strong, you could be playing a fool’s game, studies suggest.

If you are between 20 and 35 years old, you only need one strength training session per week to maintain your strength and muscle mass.

Just one set of each weightlifting exercise in each session is enough, experts say. This can be a combination of deadlifts, pull-ups and shoulder presses, which research shows are most effective when performed for about an hour in total.

Fitness professionals have now defined what they call a “minimum effective dose”: the least amount of exercise needed to cause your muscles to shrink or become weaker.

This specific metric was first identified by physicians in a 2021 study in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research.

Fitness experts have now highlighted the importance of this equation in encouraging people to exercise – and not be put off by unattainable targets.

“Many people assume that if they have to put in a lot of work to build their strength, it will take just as much effort to maintain their strength,” fitness expert and powerlifter Greg Nuckols told me. Stylist.

‘Knowing that you can maintain virtually all the strength you’ve built, with very little time investment, can help when people don’t have the time or motivation to spend long hours in the gym.’

Previous studies have revealed the exact exercises you should do to build muscle and keep your heart healthy.

The original study, conducted by researchers at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, found that the minimum exercise threshold fluctuated based on a number of factors, including age. If you’re over 35, you’ll probably need two sessions per week with two to three sets per exercise.

Furthermore, their study focused primarily on weightlifting, not other forms of training, and strength was only maintained for a total of seven months.

According to the authors, the key lies not in the frequency of your training, but in your intensity.

As long as you maintain the intensity of your workouts – and lift the same weight – the authors found you should be able to maintain your strength with just one weekly session.

Another study published in the Journal Frontiers in 2021, found that you can actually get stronger than using a ‘minimally effective’ training dose for six to twelve weeks.

Despite the old adage “use it or lose it,” it actually takes relatively little effort for the body to maintain the muscle mass it has built, according to Bryant Stamford. professor of kinesiology and integrative physiology at Hanover College.

He wrote in the Courier Journal: ‘All you have to do is make modest demands on your muscles regularly.

He explained that everyday movements, such as walking up a flight of stairs or carrying an object, are often enough to remind the body to maintain its muscle mass.

The main drawback to this strategy, Nuckols says, is that you may not get the same cardiovascular and metabolic benefits.

Experts agree that maintaining your personal power will benefit your health throughout your life.

Research shows that strength training is a great way to support bone strength, improve mobility and prevent chronic disease as you age.

“We all need to think about how we can build a foundation of strong muscles to prepare for the loss of muscle and strength we will experience as we age,” Barb Nicklas, a gerontologist at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, told me. Medicine. American National Institute on Aging.

So if you have time for a daily intense workout, that’s great. But the key is to stick with what you can manage, Nuckols said.