Why Lifting Weights Matters for Health, and How Few People Do It

Lifting weights, or any exercise that makes your muscles work against resistance, is one of the most useful things you can do for long-term health. It protects bones and joints, helps the body handle blood sugar, keeps everyday movements easy as you age, and is linked to a lower risk of early death. Yet when Australian researchers looked at national survey data, they found that most adults do no strength training at all.

Why Lifting Weights Matters for Health, and Why Few Australians Do It

Lifting weights can seem inaccessible if you don’t know how to do it. Pascal, CC BY-SA

This guide explains what counts as muscle-strengthening activity, what the evidence says it does for you, how many people actually do it, and how to start safely if you never have.

What counts as muscle-strengthening activity

The term covers any exercise where your muscles push or pull against a load. That load can be a barbell, a dumbbell, a gym machine, a resistance band, a filled shopping bag or simply your own body. Squats, lunges, push-ups, step-ups, planks and chin-ups all qualify, and so does heavy gardening such as digging or carrying soil.

Done regularly, this kind of training builds or maintains the strength, power, endurance and size of the skeletal muscles. It is different from aerobic exercise like brisk walking, swimming or cycling, which mainly trains the heart and lungs. Both matter, and they complement each other.

What the guidelines recommend

For decades, public health campaigns focused almost entirely on aerobic activity: get moving, walk more, raise your heart rate. Strength training was treated as something for athletes and bodybuilders.

That has changed. Australia’s national physical activity guidelines, released in 2014, were the country’s first to add muscle strengthening on at least two days a week. The World Health Organization now gives the same advice worldwide: adults should do muscle-strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on two or more days a week, on top of their aerobic activity. For people aged 65 and older, the WHO also recommends varied activity that trains balance and strength on at least three days a week to help prevent falls.

Why strength training matters for health

The guidelines changed because the evidence piled up. Studies link regular resistance training with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, weight gain, heart disease, physical disability and poor mental health.

A 2022 meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine by Haruki Momma and colleagues pooled data from cohort studies and found that people who did muscle-strengthening activity had about a 15% lower risk of death from any cause, 17% lower risk of cardiovascular disease and 17% lower risk of diabetes than those who did none. The biggest benefit appeared at roughly 30 to 60 minutes a week. People who combined strength work with aerobic activity had the lowest risk of all, about 40% lower all-cause mortality. The authors note the evidence comes from observational studies and its certainty is low, so it shows a strong association rather than proof of cause and effect.

Not just for blokes. from www.shutterstock.com

Bones, joints and daily life

Compared with walking or cycling, resistance training does more for bone and joint health and for the simple tasks of daily life: getting up from a chair, climbing stairs, carrying groceries, bathing and dressing. Loading the skeleton stimulates bone, which helps protect against osteoporosis.

Ageing and independence

From middle age, people gradually lose muscle mass and strength, a process called sarcopenia. Resistance training slows and can partly reverse it. Studies have found that even people in their eighties gain strength from a well-designed programme, and stronger older adults have fewer falls. That is why strength is so closely tied to staying independent for longer.

How many people actually do it

Given all this, you might expect strength training to be common. In Australia, at least, it is not.

A research team led by Jason Bennie analysed two large national data sets. The first, the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey (2011–12), interviewed more than 9,000 adults. Only 18.6% met the two-sessions-a-week strength guideline. The second, the Australian Sports Commission’s Exercise, Recreation and Sport Survey (2001–10), covered 195,926 people. Here only about 9–10% met the guideline, and roughly 85% reported no muscle-strengthening activity at all, although the share doing enough rose from 6.4% in 2001 to 12% in 2010.

Patterns were clear. Adults aged 50 and over were much less likely to do strength training than younger people. So were people living in disadvantaged areas, those with less education and those outside the big cities. Participation in Australia also appears lower than estimates from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Why so few people lift

The researchers suggested several likely barriers. Strength training needs some know-how: which exercises to do, how heavy to go and how to move with good form. Equipment and gym access cost money. And without guidance, many beginners give up before they see results.

Image is another problem. Many people associate lifting with bodybuilders, strongman contests, CrossFit boxes or intimidating gyms, and assume it leads to injury or a bulky physique. That picture keeps a lot of people, especially women and older adults, away.

Common myths about lifting weights

“It will make me bulky.” Large gains in muscle size take years of high-volume training and a deliberate diet. Two short sessions a week make you stronger and firmer, not huge. Men and women respond to training in broadly similar ways in relative terms.
“It is dangerous.” When done with sensible loads and good technique, resistance training is safe, including for older adults. Programmes can be adapted for people with limited mobility.
“Walking is enough.” Walking is excellent for the heart, but it does little to maintain muscle strength or bone density in the upper body. The two types of exercise do different jobs.
“Children should not lift.” Professional bodies such as the US National Strength and Conditioning Association consider supervised, age-appropriate strength training safe for young people.
“I’m too old to start.” Older muscles still respond to training, and older adults arguably have the most to gain.

How to start if you do no strength training now

The good news is that going from nothing to something seems to bring the largest benefit. You do not need a gym membership to begin.

Use your body weight. Start with squats (or sit-to-stands from a chair), wall or knee push-ups, lunges, glute bridges and planks at home.
Aim for two sessions a week. Work the legs, hips, back, chest, shoulders, arms and core. Eight to twelve controlled repetitions of each exercise is a common starting point.
Count useful chores. Digging, carrying and lifting in the garden or around the house load your muscles too.
Add resistance gradually. When an exercise becomes easy, add a band, a dumbbell or a few more repetitions.
Get help with technique. A session or two with a qualified trainer or physiotherapist, or a beginner class, makes training safer and more enjoyable.

If you have a heart condition, joint problems, are pregnant or have not exercised for a long time, talk to a doctor before starting a new exercise routine.

Sources: Research findings first reported in The Conversation (2016) by members of the study team and republished by IFLScience; Bennie et al., BMC Public Health (2016); Bennie et al., “Pumping Iron in Australia”, PLOS ONE (2016); Momma et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine (2022); World Health Organization: Physical activity; Wikipedia: Strength training.

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