A recent study showed people who do muscle-strengthening workouts are less likely to die prematurely than those who don’t.
U.S. exercise guidelines recommend that adults do strength training for all major muscle groups twice a week.
Si-Min Lee, professor of epidemiology at Harvard explained that muscle-strengthening exercises are beneficial because they lead to better physical functioning.
“Such exercises also improve glucose metabolism, enhance maintenance of healthy body weight, and help improve cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure,” she said. “All these factors lead to lower risks of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, which lowers mortality risk.”