The science-backed exercise method that can help fight the effects of ageing

At 10 years old, Danny Matranga wanted to be a basketball player, devoting countless hours to honing his skills and developing his athleticism. That was also the year his father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

“I had this contrast, seeing what it’s like to lose your physical function, then also experiencing my own journey of gaining more physical function. It became apparent to me that exercise was much more than just a tool for athleticism and aesthetics,” Matranga explains.

“I said, ‘You know what? I cannot save my dad, I cannot fix this, but I can hopefully empower other people to not only develop their body, but also protect against disease.”

For this reason, he became a personal trainer, choosing to specialise in strength training due to the emerging research around its benefits for both body and brain. Since then, further studies have cemented this training method’s status as a top option for those looking to exercise for health, longevity and maintaining physical function.

This is why it is believed by many, Matranga among them, to be the most important type of exercise you can do to live well into your later years. Read on to find out more about the science-backed benefits, and how to get started.

First things first: all exercise is good

Just because strength training is framed as “the best” here, that doesn’t mean other types of exercise are without merit. Any physical activity you do is highly likely to provide myriad benefits – movement truly is medicine.

A 2011 study published in The Lancet monitored the medical screenings of 416,175 people over the course of 12 years, then split participants into one of five activity level groups: inactive, low, medium, high or very high.

Those in the low activity group completed an average of roughly 15 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per day, but this accessible figure still saw them record a three-year longer life expectancy than those in the inactive group.

“Every additional 15 minutes of daily exercise beyond the minimum amount of 15 minutes a day further reduced all-cause mortality by 4 per cent and all-cancer mortality by 1 per cent,” the study states.

Moderate-intensity exercise is any form of activity that elevates your heart rate and has you breathing harder, but still allows you to hold a conversation – be that strength training, walking, running, cycling or otherwise.

Strength training, however, has a whole host of bonus benefits that make it a wise use of your time – particularly when viewed through a longevity lens.

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The bonus benefits of strength training, especially as you age

Sarcopenia and dynapenia refer to the age-related loss of muscle mass and muscle strength or function. According to a review published in the Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, “muscle mass decreases by approximately 3 to 8 per cent per decade after the age of 30, and this rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60”.

Further possible effects of sarcopenia and dynapenia include an increased risk of falls and reduced physical capacity, as well as a consequent increase in fat mass, decreased bone density, increased joint stiffness and “increased incidence of insulin resistance in the elderly”, the review later adds.

“All these changes have probable implications for several conditions, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease and osteoporosis,” it concludes.

Strength training, which bolsters muscles, bones, tendons and ligaments while also improving balance, coordination and heart health, is the natural antidote.

The Live Active Successful Ageing study, published in the British Medical Journal Open Sport and Exercise Medicine journal in 2024, explored the long-term effects of strength training – otherwise known as resistance training – on adults at retirement age.

Hundreds of participants were placed in one of three groups: those put through a year of supervised resistance training with heavy loads (relative to the individual’s strength level), those tasked with completing regular moderate-intensity training, and a non-exercising control group.

Four years on, 369 participants returned for an assessment – the average age was 71 years, and 61 per cent were women. Those who lifted heavy weights still had higher strength levels then before they started the programme, whereas the other two groups saw a decrease. They also maintained higher levels of lean body mass (or muscle) than the other two groups.

The study concluded: “In well-functioning older adults at retirement age, one year of heavy resistance may induce long-lasting beneficial effects by preserving muscle function.”

Another 2023 study published in the GeroScience journal linked twice-weekly strength training sessions, performed for 12 weeks, to positive effects on cognitive health in adults aged between 60 and 80.

It states: “Findings suggest that resistance training seems to elicit alterations in various neurometabolites that correspond to exercise-induced ‘preservation’ of brain health, while simultaneously having its beneficial effect on augmenting muscle functional characteristics in older adults.”

In short: it’s good for both your mind and body, helping maintain physical and mental function as you age.

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How to start strength training

Whatever age you are, and whatever age you start, strength training will deliver significant benefits if performed correctly. To illustrate this point, Matranga spins his camera around during our Zoom interview to reveal a woman in her eighties performing textbook Romanian deadlifts in his fitness studio.

“It’s actually unbelievable what she can do – it’s not normal, but it’s normal for us here,” he tells me. “It still blows my mind. We’re seeing all of this research that’s just now coming out, and I think, ‘Hey, if you want samples of well-ageing adults, they’re right here in the gym.’ I feel like the research is starting to echo what I’ve been seeing for a long time, so I really want to encourage more people to start strength training.”

Rather than jumping straight into a hardcore training plan, he recommends starting with one or two full-body sessions per week – “You’re only going to make progress equal to the amount of work you can recover from, and a new exerciser can’t recover from an advanced routine. We want to start at a level that is appropriate for our fitness level, and it only takes two days a week to change your life.”

Workouts can take as little as 20 minutes and comprise just four moves, Matranga adds.

“When you’re a novice, you can go into the gym and do a pushing exercise and a pulling exercise [like a chest press and a bent-over row] for your upper body, something like a squat for the front of your legs, something like a deadlift for the back of your legs, and then you can walk away after four exercises having trained every single muscle in your body,” he says.

To begin with, you can use the workout below twice per week to work your whole body with just a couple of dumbbells. Practice the exercises without weights at first to reinforce favourable form, then work up to a weight that challenges you when completing the target number of repetitions.

The key pillars of successful strength training

It is helpful to work with a trainer when you first start strength training. This can allow you to perfect your form for each exercise – like any physical activity, lifting weights is a skill that needs to be learned.

Beyond this, there are a few fundamentals that need to be present for this pursuit to be successful.

Consistency: The body adheres to the SAID principle, which stands for specific adaptations to imposed demands. Put simply, it adapts to become better at the things we consistently ask it to do. Lifting weights sends a clear signal that we need stronger muscles, bones, ligaments and tendons, among other positive physical adaptations, but it needs to be done regularly to maintain this message. One or two times per week is a good place to start.

Challenge: To provide a stimulus sufficient for triggering positive changes, strength training has to be somewhat challenging. After all, if an activity feels easy, why would the body need to adapt when it’s already up to the task?

This doesn’t mean you need to lift incredibly heavy weights – “challenging” is a term relative to the individual. Instead, experiment to find exercises, weights and target numbers of repetitions that cause you to feel the “burn” in the target muscle, Matranga advises. Alternatively, you can perform repetitions until your muscles tire to the point that you are forced to involuntarily slow down your movements. Always stop short of the point when your technique breaks down, however.

Progression: Doing the same workout, week in, week out, will initially deliver benefits for beginners – because they are new to strength training, they need less stress to trigger adaptations. But progress will soon plateau.

To see continued results, progressive overload is needed. This refers to the process of gradually and incrementally increasing the difficulty of your workouts in line with your improving strength and fitness levels. The easiest ways to do this are increasing the weight you’re lifting, upping the repetitions you’re performing per set or raising the number of sets you complete of an exercise.

For example, if the workout above starts to feel easy, the following week you could add a couple of kilograms to the dumbbells, aim for 20 repetitions per set rather than 15, or perform four sets of each exercise rather than three.

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What benefits can you expect to see after a few months of strength training?

“The first thing you’re going to notice is improved energy and perception of energy,” says Matranga. “You’re going to feel like you have more juice.

“You will definitely notice you have more speed, power and balance in your movement too. I’m not saying you will be a freak athlete, but you will be able to get off the sofa easier and walk a little quicker.”

These are the first impacts of strength training that his clients tend to report. They are soon followed by tangible changes to their bodies, both inside and out.

“[With an appropriate diet] you might start to see changes – typical results with strength training are weight loss, of course, but also changes in muscularity,” Matranga continues.

“Glutes could be lifted, arms might be more toned or pecs might be firmer – the things a lot of us are looking for aesthetically.

“Then after a few months, that’s when we can start to see real health improvements like better regulated blood sugar, better regulations of blood lipids, better bone density, better blood pressure and better heart health too.”

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Strength training isn’t for me

Matranga says he often experiences pushback from people who are hesitant to start strength training because of its somewhat bullish reputation. However, once they get started, it is the training modality he has “had the best luck getting people to stick with”.

“Resistance training is so much safer than conventional wisdom has said over the last couple of decades,” he says. “A lot of people think, ‘If I go to the gym and do a deadlift, my back is going to explode, or I can’t do squats because they are bad for my knees’. But if we actually look at the literature, resistance training is really safe.

“It’s safer than running [and most sports] because it’s very controlled and rehearsed. There’s no dynamic movement, you’re not on a slippery court or a field, so the injury risk in resistance training is very low.”

He also says it is a good option for newcomers to exercise. Firstly, because strength lays the foundations for all other forms of exercise – you can’t do any physical activity if your body is not strong enough to tolerate it – and secondly, because it is scalable.

If you can’t do a bench press, you can do a press-up. And if you can’t do a press-up, you can drop your knees to the floor or elevate your hands to make the move more accessible. You can also use resistance machines in gyms to learn the movements behind certain exercises in a more stable environment.

“As with so many exercise modalities, the lowest barrier for entry is actually above most people’s capability,” Matranga adds. “I have never met a person who couldn’t do a machine chest press or a cable lat pulldown or an assisted squat, so I really love that resistance training is beginner-friendly and safe, despite what many people think.”

Of course, if you have any underlying health conditions, it is always worth checking with a medical professional before starting a new exercise plan. But Matranga’s point still stands: strength training is far more accessible than most people realise, and the payout is immense.

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