According to research which tracked more than 147,000 people for 30 years, 90-120 minutes of strength training a week may deliver some of the biggest long-term health rewards.

Published in British Journal of Sports Medicine, the study concluded that 90-120 minutes a week of strength training is linked to a 19 per cent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 27 per cent lower risk of death from neurological disease.

Combining strength workouts with aerobic exercise produced even stronger benefits. However, researchers found no additional advantage from doing more than 120 minutes of strength training per week. 

Data was collected from three major studies spanning three decades. Every two years, participants reported how much time they spent each week doing strength training and aerobic exercise. Researchers acknowledge that self-reporting did create limitations.

Forty-six per cent reported doing some form of strength training and about 74 per cent of participants exceeded the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week – comparable to 7.5 metabolic equivalent hours (METs) over the long term. METs measure how many calories are burned during physical activity compared with resting. 

At the start of the study, participants were an average of 54 years old. Over the 30-year follow-up period, 35,798 participants died. Researchers found that higher long-term levels of weekly strength training were associated with a lower risk of death.

After accounting for other factors that could affect the results, participants who performed 90-119 minutes of strength training per week had a 13 per cent lower risk of death from any cause. 

Compared with people who did less than 7.5 MET hours of aerobic activity per week and no strength training, participants who performed strength training alone for 1-59 minutes or 60-119 minutes per week had a 7-11 per cent lower risk of death.

Aerobic exercise on its own also showed strong benefits. Any amount above 7.5 MET hours per week was associated with a 26-43 per cent lower risk of death.

The lowest mortality risk was seen among people who combined high levels of aerobic exercise with strength training. Those who accumulated 30-44 MET hours of aerobic activity per week and 60-119 minutes of strength training had a 45 per cent lower risk of death.

The study was called Long-term resistance training with all-cause and cause-specific mortality: assessing dose-response and joint associations with aerobic physical activity.