Exercise

• Strength Training

  Exercises that challenge your muscles to get stronger and more powerful.

What It Is

How active you are, and how much you train for strength and power.

Why It Matters

Staying active is probably one of the most valuable things you do for a long, capable life. Prospective meta-analyses link more activity to a large, dose-dependent reduction in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, with a smaller signal for cancer mortality, and the same gradient turns up whether activity is self-reported or measured by a device. The steepest part of the curve sits at modest activity levels well below what dedicated athletes do. The muscle-strengthening side carries weight independent of cardio: systematic reviews link regular muscle-strengthening activity, and greater muscular strength, to lower all-cause mortality and to lower risk of the major non-communicable diseases, and the two together look better than either alone.

Why it works is partly a story about capacity. Strength, and especially muscle power, predicts whether you can rise from a chair, climb stairs, and catch yourself from a fall, the everyday capacities that decide whether later decades are independent ones. Power, the rate at which you produce force, declines faster than strength with age. That much training reliably builds. How much of the survival difference is the training itself is harder to pin down, because active people tend to be healthier to begin with and illness quietly reduces activity years before it kills anyone. Studies built to strip those biases out report smaller differences than the pooled estimates do, though the benefit does not disappear when they do.

The practical takeaway is to train consistently across the years rather than chase a single workout. Studies that track activity over decades find the lowest mortality risk among adults who stay consistently or increasingly active, though the picture for those who cut back is less consistent. The behaviors below break that down into specific, measurable targets, and the guidance beneath them turns the research into how to actually train.

• García-Hermoso, A. et al. (2018). Muscular Strength as a Predictor of All-Cause Mortality in an Apparently Healthy Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Data From Approximately 2 Million Men and Women. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2018.01.008
• Momma, H. et al. (2022). Muscle-strengthening activities are associated with lower risk and mortality in major non-communicable diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies. British Journal of Sports Medicine. doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-105061
• Paluch, A.E. et al. (2022). Daily steps and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis of 15 international cohorts. The Lancet Public Health. doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00302-9
• Garcia, L. et al. (2023). Non-occupational physical activity and risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and mortality outcomes: a dose-response meta-analysis of large prospective studies. British Journal of Sports Medicine. doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2022-105669
• Araújo, C.G.S. et al. (2025). Muscle Power Versus Strength as a Predictor of Mortality in Middle-Aged and Older Men and Women. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2025.02.015
• Kankaanpää, A. et al. (2025). The associations of long-term physical activity in adulthood with later biological ageing and all-cause mortality: a prospective twin study. European Journal of Epidemiology. doi.org/10.1007/s10654-024-01200-x
• Yu, R. et al. (2025). Physical activity trajectories and accumulation over adulthood and their associations with all-cause and cause-specific mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine. doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2024-109122