Weightlifting at retirement age keeps legs strong years later, study finds

Lifting heavy weights three times a week around the age of retirement could dramatically preserve your leg strength long into the later stages of life, research suggests.

People naturally lose muscle function as they get older, and experts say faltering leg strength is a strong predictor of death in elderly people.

Previous smaller studies have suggested that resistance training, which can involve weights, body weight or resistance bands, might help prevent this happening.

Now researchers led by the University of Copenhagen have found that 12 months of heavy resistance training around retirement age preserves vital leg strength years later.

“In well-functioning older adults at retirement age, one year of heavy resistance training may induce long-lasting beneficial effects by preserving muscle function,” the researchers wrote.

Their findings were published in the journal BMJ Open Sport and Exercise Medicine.

Researchers studied 451 people around retirement age who were involved in the Live Active Successful Ageing (Lisa) study, a large randomised controlled trial.

The participants were randomly split to undergo either one year of heavy resistance training, one year of moderate-intensity training or one year of no extra exercise on top of their usual activity.

Those in the weights group lifted heavy weights three times a week. People in the moderate intensity group did circuits such as body weight exercises and resistance bands three times a week.

Each exercise in the heavy weights group involved three sets of six to 12 repetitions at between 70% and 85% of the maximum weight the person could lift for one repetition.

Bone and muscle strength and levels of body fat were measured at the start of the research and then again after one, two and four years. At the four-year mark, full results were available for 369 people.

At the end of the study, people were aged 71 on average, and 61% were women.

Those in the heavy weights group had maintained their leg strength over time, while those doing no exercise or at moderate intensity had lost strength, the results showed.

Leg strength was preserved at the same level in the heavy weights resistance training group, possibly because of nervous system changes in response to resistance training, the researchers suggested. This difference was statistically significant, they added.

The researchers said people in the study were generally more active than the population as a whole – walking for an average of nearly 10,000 steps a day – so were not necessarily a representative sample.

However, they concluded: “This study provides evidence that resistance training with heavy loads at retirement age can have long-term effects over several years.

“The results, therefore, provide means for practitioners and policymakers to encourage older individuals to engage in heavy resistance training.”