Strength training: 90 to 120 minutes a week linked to lower mortality

Many people understand that keeping active protects health. Activities such as running, walking and cycling are linked with lower rates of illness and death.

What is less widely appreciated is how strength training might influence day-to-day wellbeing and long-term outcomes.

A recent large-scale scientific study suggests that, when done in the right amounts, strength training could be associated with a wide range of health gains.

In particular, completing 90 to 120 minutes of strength training per week was associated with longer life expectancy and a lower risk of dying from the most common causes.

These results add to the growing body of evidence that developing and preserving muscle is not merely about looks; it may also be important for long-term health and survival.

A 30-year look at exercise habits

Researchers tracked 147,374 adults for up to 30 years. Participants came from three major long-running health studies, comprising 31,540 men and 115,834 women.

Every two years, participants reported how much time they spent each week on aerobic activity and on muscle-strengthening activities.

Aerobic physical activities included brisk walking, jogging, running, swimming, bicycling, tennis, squash, strenuous housework and outdoor work, and taking the stairs.

Strength training activities included resistance exercises and weight lifting.

At the start of the study, the average participant age was 54. Nearly half reported doing strength training.

Around 74% exceeded the minimum recommendation of 150 minutes per week of moderate aerobic physical activity.

The surprising number

Over the follow-up period, 35,798 participants died. When the researchers examined the data, a consistent trend emerged.

Those who did 90 to 119 minutes of strength training each week had a 13% lower risk of death from any cause than people who did no strength training.

The associations were stronger for particular conditions. The same weekly amount of strength training was linked with a 19% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 27% lower risk of death from neurological disease.

Notably, doing more than 120 minutes of strength training per week did not seem to add extra benefit for overall survival.

“Our findings on different dose-response relationships between long-term resistance training with all-cause and cause-specific mortality suggest that different amounts of resistance training may be needed to optimize benefits across outcomes,” noted the researchers.

Cancer risk showed a different pattern

The researchers also observed a link between strength training and reduced cancer mortality, although the pattern did not mirror the results for heart and neurological disease.

Lower cancer risk appeared only at smaller amounts of strength training.

Participants completing one to 29 minutes per week had a 21% lower risk of cancer-related death, while those doing 30 to 59 minutes weekly had an 18% lower risk.

At higher levels of strength training, the team did not find a comparable reduction.

As an observational study, this research cannot show that strength training directly caused these differences; it indicates that the factors were associated.

The power of combining aerobic activity with strength training

Strength training on its own was linked with improvements, but the clearest benefits were seen when it was paired with aerobic activity.

Relative to participants who did less than 7.5 MET hours of aerobic exercise per week and no strength training, those who did one to 59 minutes or 60 to 119 minutes of strength training alone showed a 7% to 11% lower risk of death.

Doing aerobic exercise without strength training was associated with a 26% to 43% lower risk of death when activity levels were above 7.5 MET hours per week.

Consistency is key

The lowest risks were found in people who routinely did both types of exercise.

Those who achieved 30 to 44 MET hours of aerobic activity alongside 60 to 119 minutes of strength training per week had a 45% lower risk of death.

For participants doing more than 45 MET hours of aerobic activity each week, risk was 53% to 58% lower regardless of how much strength training they did.

“The observed pattern that adding resistance training further reduced mortality risk across all levels of aerobic activity up to 45 MET hours/week supports current recommendations encouraging both types of activity to maximise mortality benefits,” noted the researchers.

Why muscle matters as people age

In recent years, scientists have paid increasing attention to muscle health.

Muscle enables people to move confidently, maintain balance, metabolise effectively and manage everyday tasks independently.

As people get older, loss of muscle mass often accelerates. This natural physiological change has been linked with frailty, falls, poorer quality of life and higher disease risk.

Training that targets muscle building can counter this decline. It can improve bone density and joint strength, and it may also support blood glucose control.

Together, these factors could help explain the positive association between resistance training and longevity.

Broader implications of the study

The authors highlighted several limitations. Exercise levels were self-reported rather than objectively measured.

In addition, some strengthening activities, such as Pilates and calisthenics, were not included.

The researchers also lacked data on workout intensity and the duration of individual sessions, both of which might have affected the findings.

Because the research was observational, it cannot confirm cause and effect.

Even so, the results point towards a practical takeaway: doing a modest amount of strength training each week-particularly alongside regular aerobic exercise-may be linked with meaningful long-term health benefits.

For many adults, the apparent sweet spot is around an hour and a half to two hours per week.

The full study was published in the journal British Journal of Sports Medicine.