Resistance Training May Reduce Risk Of Heart Attack

Doing resistance/strength training for an hour each week has been found to help cut risk of heart attack and stroke by 40-70% by Iowa State University researchers. Regular resistance/strength training has been shown to provide metabolic benefits, and is believed to support weight maintenance and metabolic health due to the ability to utilize energy which would otherwise be stored as fat. Muscle building and toning, even without doing aerobics, can burn more energy and help to prevent obesity along with providing long term health benefits.

Effects of resistance/strength training were investigated on three health outcomes: 1) cardiovascular events such as stroke and heart attack not leading to death; 2) all cardiovascular events including death; and 3) death due to any cause. Examining data from close to 13,000 adults it was found that doing resistance/strength training 1-3 times, or a total of one hour each week significantly reduced deaths from any cause and the overall prevalence of cardiovascular disease.

Resistance/strength training was found to support heart health more than aerobic exercises such as walking and cycling in a study published in Medical News conducted by St. George’s University, and presented at the 2018 American College of Cardiology Latin American Conference supports these finding which analyzed data on some 4,000 adults in the National Health and Nutrition Examination examining how cardiovascular risk factors were affected by static or dynamic activities. After adjusting for smoking status, ethnicity, age, and gender the results of two age groups 21-44 and 45+ showed that 36% of the younger group reported doing resistance training along with 25% of the older group. 28% of the younger group reported doing dynamic exercise along with 21% of the older group. Doing either dynamic or static exercises were found to lead to 30-70% lower risk of CVD; resistance training appeared to be more beneficial, but those reporting doing both forms of exercises fared better than those who increased the amount of only one type.