We know strength training can help you build muscle, get stronger, improve your body composition, and stay more capable as you age. But how much strength training do you actually need to potentially improve your longevity?
A recent study provides an interesting answer: About 90 to 120 minutes per week may be enough to capture much of the mortality benefit associated with strength training.
Before you cut your workouts down to two hours a week, though, there is an important distinction to understand. Living longer is only one reason to strength train.
What the Study Found
Researchers followed nearly 150,000 nurses and other health professionals across three long-running studies for up to 30 years. Participants regularly reported how much time they spent strength training and doing aerobic exercise. Over the course of the study, researchers documented nearly 36,000 deaths and examined the relationship between resistance training and mortality. The results were pretty compelling.
Compared with people who didn't strength train, those who performed roughly 90 to 120 minutes of resistance training per week had:
13% lower risk of dying from any cause
19% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease
27% lower risk of dying from neurological diseases, including dementia
Interestingly, the mortality benefit appeared to level off once people reached roughly two hours of strength training per week.
Doing more than that wasn't associated with an additional reduction in overall mortality risk.
Does That Mean You Only Need Two Hours of Strength Training?
Not necessarily.
And this is where I think the study can easily be misunderstood.
The researchers were looking primarily at mortality. They weren't asking:
How strong can you become?
How much muscle can you build?
Can you maintain your bone density?
Can you move without pain?
Can you carry your luggage through an airport?
Can you get off the floor without assistance?
Can you keep playing golf, tennis, pickleball, or whatever activity you love when you're 70?
Those are different outcomes. And they matter.
So while two hours of strength training may capture much of the longevity benefit measured in this study, that doesn't mean additional intelligently programmed training has no value.
Strength Training Isn't Just About Avoiding Death
I don't think the goal of exercise should simply be to live as long as possible. The goal should be to remain capable for as much of that life as possible.
There is a big difference between lifespan and healthspan. You don't just want more years. You want more years where you can:
Travel
Play with your kids or grandkids
Carry groceries
Climb stairs
Get yourself off the ground
Participate in sports and hobbies
Maintain your independence
Muscle and strength help provide the physical capacity to do those things. And unfortunately, if we don't actively work to maintain them, both tend to decline as we get older.
That's one reason I view strength training less as something you do for a few months to "get in shape" and more as something you should ideally continue throughout your life.
Don't Forget About Cardio Either
One of the other important findings from the research was that strength training wasn't working alone. People who combined resistance training with regular aerobic activity had some of the lowest mortality risk in the study. That shouldn't turn this into another debate about whether cardio or strength training is better. You probably want both.
Strength training helps you maintain muscle, strength, and physical capacity. Aerobic training helps build cardiovascular fitness and endurance. Walking and general daily movement matter too. You don't have to choose one camp. A well-rounded fitness program incorporates all of them.
What Could This Look Like in Real Life?
If you're starting from scratch, you probably don't need a complicated six-day workout split.
Two or three well-designed strength workouts each week can go a long way.
For example:
Option 1: Two Days Per Week
Monday: Full-body strength training
Thursday: Full-body strength training
Option 2: Three Days Per Week
Monday: Full-body strength training
Wednesday: Full-body strength training
Friday: Full-body strength training
Each workout might last approximately 30 to 60 minutes.
From there, add walking, cardiovascular training, recreational activity, and whatever else you enjoy.
The important part isn't creating the most impressive-looking training schedule. It's building one you can actually sustain.
The Bigger Question Is What You Do With Those Two Hours
Two people could both spend 120 minutes a week "strength training" and get dramatically different results. One person might consistently perform movements that challenge the major muscle groups, gradually increase resistance, improve technique, and progress over time. Another might repeat the exact same easy workout every week for years.
The clock says they both trained for two hours.
Their bodies may receive very different training stimuli. That's why training quality matters alongside training quantity.
A good strength program should generally include movements that challenge the major muscle groups and should gradually become more demanding as your body adapts. You don't need to destroy yourself every workout. But you do need enough challenge to give your body a reason to adapt.
One Important Caveat
This research doesn't prove that strength training itself caused people to live longer. It was an observational study.
People who strength train may differ from people who don't in other important ways, including their diet, overall activity levels, healthcare habits, smoking history, and other lifestyle factors. The researchers attempted to account for many of these differences, but observational studies can never completely eliminate them. Training time was also self-reported, and the researchers weren't able to measure exactly how hard every participant trained. So I wouldn't interpret 90 to 120 minutes as some magical threshold.
Think of it more as another piece of evidence supporting a much larger message:
You probably don't need to spend your life in the gym to get meaningful health benefits from strength training.
The Real Takeaway
If longevity is your primary goal, this research suggests that roughly 90 to 120 minutes of strength training each week may capture much of the mortality benefit.
Two hours out of a 168-hour week is a pretty manageable investment. But I wouldn't stop thinking there. Strength training can also help you build muscle, improve strength, maintain physical capacity, and prepare your body for the things you want to continue doing decades from now. So don't train simply because you want to avoid dying earlier.
Train because you want to keep living well.
And if you're unsure how to turn two or three workouts a week into a structured program that actually fits your goals, that's where having a plan becomes valuable. I work with people who want to become stronger, move better, and build a sustainable training routine they can maintain for the long haul.
If you'd like help building that kind of program, reach out and tell me a little about your goals and what you're currently doing.
Research Highlighted
Zhang Y, Lee DH, Rezende LFM, Ma Y, Giovannucci E. Long-term resistance training with all-cause and cause-specific mortality: assessing dose-response and joint associations with aerobic physical activity. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2026;60(12):874–883. DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2025-110503.