Weightlifting vs. Aerobic Exercise: Which is Best?

The science is in: Do either, ideally both.

Image: Pixabay/The Digital Artist

Jessica Gorzelitz is a certified trainer, a weightlifter, and a non-competitive powerlifter, and she’s got some thoughts on whether strength training or aerobic workouts are best for health and longevity. Do both, her new study suggests, settling any debate there might have been.

Gorzelitz, an assistant professor of health promotion at the University of Iowa, put her passion and her PhD in kinesiology and exercise science to work, studying the benefits of weightlifting versus moderate to vigorous aerobic activity. Her team analyzed data on more than 99,713 U.S. men and women who averaged 71 years old in 2006, when they were surveyed on their workout habits. Over the next decade, 28,477 of them died, revealing some interesting survival statistics:

• Working out with weights was linked to a 9% to 22% lower risk of death compared to sedentary individuals (the range relates to frequency of working out, with one or two sessions per week bringing a 14% lower risk, for example).
• Aerobic activity without weight was linked to a 24% to 34% lower risk of death compared to the sedentary group.
• The risk of death was 41% to 47% lower among those who met most of the minimum recommended guidelines for…