I've been doing strength training (the program is called Stronglifts 5x5[1]) with freeweights for about 9 months now. I just turned 44, and I've never felt better, and I'm stronger now than I have ever been. The program I use describes 3 simple exercises to do 3 times a week, and each workout takes me 30-45 minutes. Very little equipment is needed. It's hard to find good information about this on the net that covers both what exercises to do, how to do them, and how to eat. This program covers all of that, taking you from lifting an empty bar right on up. It's totally free, with an option to pay if you want personal consultation.<p>I used to have knee pain, and I don't anymore. I used to get a sore back from coding all the time, and I don't any more. I seriously recommend trying strength training.<p>[1] <a href="http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-beginner-strength-training-program/" rel="nofollow">http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-beginner-strength-tra...</a>
It is important to note that this is a study of people who happened to be stronger, not people who were randomly caused to be stronger (ie by randomly assigning workout routines). Larry Wassermann has a great write up on the distinction with regards to inferring causation vs association here:<p><a href="http://normaldeviate.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/48/" rel="nofollow">http://normaldeviate.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/48/</a><p>It is good that they attempted to control for things like cardiovascular fitness but on there are also confounding factors like genetics and selection bias that are harder to look at (ie maybe the genetic variants that make it easier to build fast twitch muscles are what has the protective effect and increased strength training won't help someone without those genes).<p>That being said I highly endorse bouldering and rock climbing in general as a way to build strength and move towards a healthy life style for people who don't enjoy typical gym workouts.
I used to dabble with some amateur powerlifting (I could deadlift 420 and squat about 340 at my peak), and I have to say, there's something really addictive about lifting weights and getting stronger. Knowing that it can decrease your chance of death makes it even more compelling.<p>Sadly, I, like so many other people, "fell off the wagon" and more or less quit lifting, gained a bunch of weight, and now, a few years later, I find out I'm diabetic and I wind up in the hospital with a life-threatening condition known as DKA.<p>Moral of this story: Get your ass in a gym and lift some weights! And step away from the buffet table. Don't be stupid like me. Especially for the younger folks here, and the people who are already in good shape, if you ever take one bit of advice from an "old guy" take this one: Take care of your body. When you're 20, even 30, it's real easy to assume that you don't have to worry about your diet, about exercise, etc... it all seems to come so easily, and it's SO easy to rationalize not going to the gym, eating that extra Snickers bar, drinking those couple of extra cans of Coke, etc. Don't do it. It <i>will</i> freaking catch up with you, sooner or later. Don't wait until you're 40 and lying in a hospital bed to think "Oh, maybe I should clean my diet up and get some exercise".
The most statistically astute comment posted here so far is the top-level comment by micro_cam<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5493772" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5493772</a><p>pointing out that the study design here doesn't involve random assignment to strength training of any kind, but rather just observation of the study population over time. Sure, it's a good idea to be stronger rather than weaker. Moreover, it is plausible that exercises that tend to develop strength (as measured in the study) have health benefits above and beyond merely developing strength. There is certainly no reason not to exercise based on this finding. But there is also not a strong reason to predict a longer rather than shorter life from your personal strength measurement, even though the study did the usual kind of regression analysis to control for other independent variables. Simply put, this was not a treatment-control study design,<p><a href="http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html" rel="nofollow">http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html</a><p><a href="http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz" rel="nofollow">http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz</a><p>so no inference of causation is supported here. The authors were careful to write the word "association" (which is honest), and the authors were careful to investigate all-cause mortality in this study population (which is thoughtful), but we don't know yet how much you or I can improve individual lifespan by doing strength-building exercises.<p>AFTER EDIT: The comment by micro_cam, which deserves your upvote for getting me started on my comment, is especially astute because it mentions that this was not a genetically sensitive study design. To answer the question posed in one of the replies this comment received, that will eventually be an issue worth looking at, which sorts of "endophenotypes" gain the most benefit from what sort of exercise. But we are nowhere near that level of precision of investigation yet. The statement about limitations of the study at the end of the submitted article mentions more issues.<p>Picking up on something I learned from the late Richard Feynman's comments on the Challenger explosion investigation, I would like to see a scatterplot of these data displayed over the calculated regression line, to see how much uncertainty still surrounds their model. As it is, the confidence intervals around the death rates for different categories of strength overlap considerably, so there are some strong people with the same mortality risk as some of the weaker people.
Hand grip strength. Pretty much all other measures of frailty - such as muscle mass. Time spent jogging. Time spent not sitting. Time spent being active.<p>All of these correlate well with mortality. Causation is harder to prove on these longer timescales. e.g. more likely to be strong and exercising because you are more robust, or more likely to be more robust because you are strong and exercising. Or if both, as is likely, to what degree and circumstance.<p>Is it being strong, or is it side effects of processes that are involved in building and maintaining muscle mass the old fashioned way - e.g. hormetic effects of regular exercise, that cause mild cellular stress and thus boost housekeeping processes to better maintain tissue?<p>Studies in shorter lived animals support causative roles for exercise and maintained muscle mass in long term health. For other data points, one could look at, for example, the fact that calorie restriction (not normally noted in conjunction with building strength) considerably reduces age-related loss of muscle mass and strength through a range of not fully understood mechanisms.
Why are so many people discussing the evidence here?<p>If one seriously believes the BMJ would let a questionable study be published, think again. I'm not saying everything that is published in high quality peer reviewed journals is absolutely true, but it is subject to so much scrutiny that is unlikely to have an evident flaw in the reasoning, or at least some that is not properly mentioned in the article or letters to the editor.<p>Which leads us back to why are so many here angry at the conclusion - because many answer seem emotionally charged.<p>Among the tools offered to you to try to increase your lifespan, and especially the "high quality" years, is physical effort.<p>There is even a very positive message there - you don't have to be in a perfect physical form, or do sports, to get the gains- muscle mass alone is enough.<p>If you have had health problem, say broken bones, reduce mobility, pain, whatever, you can still get some of the positive advantages of muscle mass with weight training - which can be done at home, in a gym, anywhere.<p>You may not get as much benefits as somebody fully healthy (ex: if you hip is not working, it will be a problem to train both legs, etc.) but it is still better than nothing!!!<p>Exercice, as in improving the muscle mass, is well known to have positive health effects. If one does not exercise, the blame is not to be put on the lack of time, but rather on the lack of proper prioritization.
I'd like to point out that when looking only at persons aged <60 OR persons with a BMI >25, the strongest (upper) third group did NOT have the lowest death rate in this study. Instead it was the "middle" group in both cases. Admittedly with not much of a difference from the upper group. And again, this study did not claim <i>causation</i> between strength and mortality, but <i>association</i>.<p>Although if we just play with the thought and assume a causation between strength and mortality and if you are under 60 years of age or have a BMI over 25 and you want to minimize your mortality rate, your one-repetition maximum (1RM) strength goals in a lifting weight / body weight ratio would be x:<p><pre><code> Bench press: 0.7 < x < 1.1
Leg press: 1.4 < x < 1.9</code></pre>
I'm not a scientist, and this is wild conjecture, but one possible reason why people who workout live longer is that working out boosts happiness (releases endorphins) and reduces stress, and both of those have been shown to contribute to a long life.
Related brain-snack concerning muscle tissue and cancer: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/eva_vertes_looks_to_the_future_of_medicine.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/eva_vertes_looks_to_the_future_of_m...</a><p>From it: "skeletal muscle tissue is resistant to cancer, and furthermore, not only to cancer, but of metastases going to skeletal muscle" (not entirely true, you have rhabdomiosarcomas, though they are rare and may originate in connective tissues, but she's definetely on to something).
Was thinking of putting together a HN/Digg style site for fitness links (example here: <a href="http://erikaugust.com/sportslinks/" rel="nofollow">http://erikaugust.com/sportslinks/</a>)... Good idea? Or am I missing a site out there already (outside of the sub-Reddits)?
One important thing to keep in mind is that the upper third average bench press measured was 83.8kg (~185lbs). That is still a light bench press by the standards of those in the fitness and bodybuilding industries. I would imagine that there is a limit to the longevity gains that could be made from muscle strength and that these gains might start to reverse for bodybuilders and other strength athletes due to the increased strain it is putting on your heart and other organs.
Just in case after reading this you want to start exercising, I strongly suggest the following two resources:<p>* <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/faq" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/faq</a><p>* <a href="http://simplesciencefitness.com/" rel="nofollow">http://simplesciencefitness.com/</a><p>I have been doing strength training for a couple of years now and I can ensure you that it changed my life: better health, better quality of life, better code (I'm more focused).
I'd be much more interested in the same study without adjusting for BMI, because adding muscular strength would increase one's weight when not accomplished by reduction in body fat. As it stands, it's not controversial or surprising, because body fat loss would make you stronger relative to your BMI, without any increase in strength.
What about the risk of osteoarthritis? See this discussion: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/s2kzg/my_doctor_told_me_squats_are_the_single_worst/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/s2kzg/my_doctor_tol...</a>
Starting Strength is one of the best books on building strength, written by Mark Rippetoe and Jason Kelly. they propagate (among others exercises): squats, which is a single exercise that trains about 60% of your body.
"We love CrossFit. It is great job security." - my physical therapist<p>edit: my point being that from the PT's POV, the more intense the strength training, the more likely a serious injury will occur during training.
here is my 2 cents. Im a coder, developer but I am ripped (sorry for the self love) I work out like crazy and actively surf / kitesurf, rockclimb. So my gym sessions have always had a purpose - to make myself stronger per the requirements of those sports. So my 2 cents - get of the whey protein. don't take it do not touch it. I have no scientific evidence but way too many people are on that and no long term studies. Only evidence is this: A good friend fellow athlete (sailor olympic level windsurfer) healthy as none other, got a heart attack at the age of 33. He looked into my eyes and said he never took anything (when i asked if he doped of any sort) and he only took whey. Made me get off it. Difference in phenomenal. You get "cut" lean, stronger muscles, just eat well. Not to mention your body gets conditioned to the "easy" absorption of nutrients that come from whey and gets lazy. There thats my 2 cents.<p>TLDR - get of whey protein, you'll get stronger live longer.