It’s never too late or too early to get stronger

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If you walk, run, swim or bike regularly during the week, you probably think you’re doing enough to stay healthy. But health and fitness experts have upped the exercise ante by suggesting that weight training be added to our weekly routine.

Admittedly, Canadian physical activity guidelines have long suggested engaging in muscle strengthening activities at least twice a week. But most of the messaging from health and fitness agencies has focused on the benefits of aerobic exercise, with strength training more of a footnote than a headline.

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So why the current push to get more Canadians lifting weights? The past few years have seen more and more research revealing that resistance training does more than just build muscular strength, size and power. Studies show it rivals aerobic exercise when it comes to benefiting overall health and reducing the risk of chronic diseases that rob Canadians of some of their best years, including cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer.

But that’s not the only reason why weight training has become the latest call to action. More and more evidence suggests that lifting weights is key in delaying the natural loss of muscle that occurs as we age. Left unchecked muscle is lost at a rate of three per cent a year starting around middle age. That may not seem like much when you’re young and healthy, but less muscle makes it tougher to accomplish the tasks of everyday life, like climbing the stairs, taking out the garbage and lifting bags of groceries. It also makes you less resilient to injury and quicker to fatigue, especially if you’re active. And with the 55-plus crowd part of the fastest growing age group in Canada, healthy aging is a national concern.

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“Resistance exercise has been shown to have remarkable benefits in terms of mitigating declines in muscle strength and power and delaying the transition to frailty,” said Stuart Phillips, lead author of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health and Fitness Journal 2023 research paper of the year, the Coming of Age of Resistance Exercise as a Primary Form of Exercise for Health and a Canada Research Chair in skeletal muscle health.

Phillips isn’t the only fitness and health expert hyping the importance of weight training. A recent editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine acknowledges the significance of muscular strength as we age but also suggests building and maintaining muscle is as important during our youth as it is during middle age and beyond.

The editorial argues that low levels of muscular strength take a toll on physical health no matter the age. The weaker kids in class are less inclined to participate in physical activity. And if they do, they are more likely to be injured, which further alienates them from active play. This lack of confidence in their physical skills, carries over to the teen years and later making it not just more likely that they are one of the 50 per cent of Canadians who fail to meet national exercise guidelines, they’ll also have a lower baseline of muscle mass which makes them more at risk for the kind of frailty and functional decline that diminishes quality of life as the decades add up.

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“If we are to foster health aging, we must recognize the importance of extending the strength-span from the geriatric years to a foundation of muscular strength and physical function in the pediatric years,” the authors of the BJSM editorial wrote.

To be clear, health and fitness experts aren’t calling on children to start powerlifting. Resistance training comes in many forms, including body weight exercises like pushups, squats and lunges, the use of light weights like dumbbells, kettlebells and medicine balls and weight-training machines that guide exercisers through the correct range of motion.

Gone are the days when weight training was thought to stunt the growth of young children and increase the risk of injury to their developing joints. Under a supervised setting led by a certified instructor who provides age-appropriate guidance, technique and strength training protocols, injury rates have proven to be lower than those recorded during organized sports. Most resistance training programs for children use body weight or light weights to overload the muscles. In the teen years, heavier weights and more complex exercises and training programs can be introduced so that by high school graduation young people are not only confident training on their own, but they will also carry that confidence into their middle and later years.

“We need to assess muscular strength in clinical practice beginning early in life and prescribe tailored interventions that recognize the coequal importance of aerobic activities and muscle strength activities,” said the British journal authors.

With plenty of evidence proving it’s never too late or too early to benefit from strength training, most experts suggest hitting the weights twice a week and including exercises for all major muscle groups. Start with one to two sets of eight to 12 repetitions using a weight that feels challenging but not so heavy that it’s a struggle to maintain good form through to the last rep. An effective strength training workout can be done in 30 to 60 minutes, leaving lots of time to get in your regular run, walk, bike or swim. So pick up a dumbbell and start lifting.

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