An hour a week of lifting weights can help you stave off cardiovascular disease risk!

New Delhi: Regular physical activity and a good, balanced diet are requisites of a long, healthy life. Such a lifestyle not only promotes weight loss, but also helps prevent and/or reduce many minor to major health issues.

One of the major health risks that exercising can waive off is cardiovascular diseases. Lack of exercise can pose a massive threat to heart health, especially if you have metabolic syndrome – a group of conditions that occur together, including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and excess weight.

Previous studies have already shown that just 15 minutes a day of moderate-intensity exercise can lower the risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease.

However, a specific study focussing on resistance training’s effect on risk of developing metabolic syndrome has shown that exercising for just one hour per week can protect your heart.

Carried out by researchers from University of Radboud University Medical Centre, the Netherlands, (known as Radboudumc), along with British, Spanish and American colleagues, the study used data from 7,418 middle-aged men and women who participated in the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study (ACLS) in the USA. Participants were asked to report on how much resistance exercise they did per week, both the amount of minutes and the amount of sessions.

All participants were healthy and without metabolic syndrome at the start of the study. During the study, carried out between 1987 and 2006, 15% of participants developed metabolic syndrome. After taking into account factors such as smoking status and regular endurance training, the researchers found that those who engaged in resistance training, including those who completed the recommended two or more sessions of training a week, had a 17% lower risk of developing metabolic syndrome compared to those who did no resistance exercise at all.

Perhaps surprisingly, those who completed less than an hour a week of resistance exercise, 1-59 minutes (usually over 1-2 sessions), had a 29% lower risk. The team found that more intensive resistance exercise training was not associated with any additional health benefit (although the team noted that sample sizes for higher levels were smaller, potentially reducing their ‘statistical power’).

The finding suggests that a small amount of resistance exercise just once or twice per week may be enough to enjoy benefits. It also didn’t make much difference if the resistance exercise was done only on weekends or spread out through the week. Meanwhile, doing a combination of resistance training and aerobic exercises provided even greater benefits for those wanting to further reduce their risk of metabolic syndrome.

Esmée Bakker, lead author of the study, concluded that, “A modest amount of resistance exercise, such as two 30-minute sessions per week, has the most beneficial effect.” It further advises that, “These findings should be included in the standard medical recommendations for preventing metabolic syndrome and future cardiovascular disease.” The original article was published on June 13 on the website of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

(With AFP inputs)