How lifting weights three times a week can help lower your biological age by eight years
Lifting weights three times a week can reduce a person’s biological age by almost eight years, a study suggests.
People who did strength training for an hour three times a week had significantly younger human bodies.
Weightlifting has previously been linked to better bone and muscle health, but a new study of 4,800 people found that lifters also had a lower biological age.
The NHS recommends that adults should be active every day and undertake 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week.
It also suggests strengthening activities that train all major muscle groups, including the legs, back and abdomen, on at least two days a week.
The study looked specifically at the impact of strength training on the body and analyzed the length of ‘telomeres’, the pieces of DNA at the end of chromosomes that act like an aglet on a shoelace and prevent the genetic material from breaking up and becoming damaged .
Previous studies have shown that people with longer telomeres have a longer life expectancy than those with shorter telomeres, and also show that telomeres shrink with age.
Analysis of blood samples showed that those who exercised the most had the longest telomeres, and that exercise often led to greater benefits.
Lifting weights three times a week can reduce a person’s biological age by almost eight years, a study suggests (stock image)
People who did strength training for an hour three times a week had the body of a significantly younger person (stock image)
Every ten minutes of strength training per week was associated with a reduction in biological age by approximately five months, with benefits seen in both men and women and in people of all ages.
Writing in the journal Biology, the researchers said: ‘In this national sample, 90 minutes of strength training per week was, on average, associated with 3.9 years less biological aging.’
Larry Tucker, professor of exercise science at Brigham Young University in the US, conducted the research and said the work shows a strong correlation but cannot prove that weight lifting causes the longer telomeres.
‘Correlation does not mean causation. “We cannot say that lifting has caused a decrease in biological age,” he told The Telegraph.
‘All types of strength exercises were counted and all types of exercise appear to be associated with longer telomeres.’
People in the study who lifted weights most often had telomeres that contained about 225 more stretches of DNA than those who did not lift weights.
“The findings showed that for every ten minutes spent strength training per week, telomeres were on average 6.7 base pairs longer,” the study said.
The NHS recommends that adults should be active every day and undertake 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week (stock image)
‘Therefore, 90 minutes of strength training per week was predictive of telomeres being on average 60.3 base pairs longer.
‘Because each year of chronological age was associated with telomeres being 15.47 base pairs shorter in this national sample, 90 minutes per week of strength training was associated with an average of 3.9 years less biological aging.
‘This interpretation suggests that one hour of strength training three times a week (180 minutes in total) was associated with 7.8 years less biological aging.’
The scientists say strength training can be good for a person’s health and life expectancy because it tackles obesity, but it also prevents muscle loss, increases metabolism and improves cardiovascular health.
‘By reducing the effects of chronic disease and metabolic risk factors, resistance training appears to slow the biological aging process and reduce cell senescence, evidenced by longer telomeres,’ writes Professor Tucker.