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The new secret to a long life? Add more plates to your barbell, according to a new study from the University of South Carolina.
In the 1980s, researchers measured the one-rep max on bench press and leg press of more than 1,500 men who had high blood pressure. By tracking the group over the following two decades, the scientists found that the highest scoring one-third of those men had a 41 percent lower risk of death—for any reason, ranging from a heart attack to being hit by a bus—than men in the lowest third of strength.
That life-extending effect of big guns held true even after the scientists adjusted for a host of other factors, including the subjects’ body weight, whether or not they smoked, their cardiovascular fitness (determined with a treadmill test), and their level of daily physical activity. Despite everything else, the strongest men always had a significantly lower risk of early death. Since the researchers were looking broadly at survival over time, it’s hard to pin down a precise reason why putting up big numbers on the bench press helps you live longer. “Stronger skeletal muscle could increase heart or pulmonary strength, the different types of muscle fibers could have an effect, or there could be something particularly helpful about resistance exercise itself,” says study author Enrique Artero, Ph.D., of the University of South Carolina.
The upper third of men—the ones who had the lowest risk of death—on average could bench press 90 percent of their body weight and leg press 1.8 times their body weight
In the 1980s, researchers measured the one-rep max on bench press and leg press of more than 1,500 men who had high blood pressure. By tracking the group over the following two decades, the scientists found that the highest scoring one-third of those men had a 41 percent lower risk of death—for any reason, ranging from a heart attack to being hit by a bus—than men in the lowest third of strength.
That life-extending effect of big guns held true even after the scientists adjusted for a host of other factors, including the subjects’ body weight, whether or not they smoked, their cardiovascular fitness (determined with a treadmill test), and their level of daily physical activity. Despite everything else, the strongest men always had a significantly lower risk of early death. Since the researchers were looking broadly at survival over time, it’s hard to pin down a precise reason why putting up big numbers on the bench press helps you live longer. “Stronger skeletal muscle could increase heart or pulmonary strength, the different types of muscle fibers could have an effect, or there could be something particularly helpful about resistance exercise itself,” says study author Enrique Artero, Ph.D., of the University of South Carolina.
The upper third of men—the ones who had the lowest risk of death—on average could bench press 90 percent of their body weight and leg press 1.8 times their body weight
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