120 Minutes of Weekly Strength Work Is Best for Longevity: Here’s What to Do

A study found that two weekly hours of strength training[strength tray-ning]nounResistance-based exercise to build muscle and support healthy aging.Learn MoreClose is the peak for live-long benefits. We asked the experts what to do in that two hours.

Last month, Harvard scientists announced the sweet spot for strength training and longevity: Two hours per week.

In a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, scientists looked at data from more than 147,000 people, and found that when people trained for 90 to 120 minutes per week, they reduced their cardiovascular death risk by 19 percent, and their risk of death from neurological diseases by 27 percent. The live-long benefits plateaued there, though: Training more than two hours per week didn’t increase these protections against early death any further.

That doesn’t mean you won’t get any benefits from further strength training at all, says Shawn Arent, PhD, chair of the Department of Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina. They just level off for longevity. And the study, he says, leaves one important question unanswered: What should you do for those two hours per week?

To help Super Agers get the most from their 120 minutes, I asked Arent and Mike Aidala, coach and owner of The Offense, a gym and mindset coaching business in Boulder, CO, for their advice on optimizing two hours per week. They came back with an epic set of workouts that span 3-4 sessions per week, so you can turn those two hours into a longer, stronger life. (You might want to bookmark this one.) 

Five Strategies to Maximize 120 Minutes Per Week

Depending on how you lift, strength training can change your body in myriad ways: It can maximize hypertrophy[hy-pur-truh-fee]nounThe increase in muscle size through training.Learn MoreClose, or muscle size. It can focus on pure strength. It can improve maneuverability through different planes of motion, sometimes called functional strength[fuhngk-shuh-nl strength]nounStrength that translates to everyday tasks and movements.Learn MoreClose. It can also improve strength endurance, the ability to keep working against a heavy load over a long period of time. 

“The thing you need to think about when structuring your workouts is if you’re giving yourself 30 minutes, four times per week, are you going to maximize any of these variables, per se? Or do you have a really good shot at improving all of them?” Arent asks. “I’d say it’s the latter.”

Training for health, longevity, and well-being, he says, is about moving all of these balls forward a little, instead of advancing one of them all the way to the goal line. One thing you can maximize, though, is the amount of your training time that is actually spent training, Aidala says.

“Often, people bring their phone in and say, ‘I’ll just check my email for a second here’ between sets,” he says.“And you lose two minutes. And if you only have 30 minutes, it’s a decent percentage of the time you’re in here.”

So put your phone away (after you’re done reading this, of course) and get more done with these five strategies:

1. Trade in long rest periods for supersets: Longer rest periods can build more strength with each set. According to one research review from Sports Medicine, pausing for 3-5 minutes between sets maximized strength gains compared to shorter rests.

But if you’re only in the gym for 30-40 minutes per session, you don’t have time for that without losing out on valuable training time. That’s why both experts recommend supersetting, a strategy that rests one muscle group while working another related group (think a chest exercise and a back exercise, or a back exercise and a leg exercise). By alternating between them, the time you spend on exercise two helps your muscles rest for exercise one, so you can give a good effort when you start again.

“If you do  some kind of chest press followed by a seated row, the time it takes you to go from the chest press to the row and then back again, that’s 60-80 seconds from bench press to bench press,” Arent notes.

2. Aim for 12-18 sets per week per muscle group: For hypertrophy, or building muscle mass[muh-suhl mas]nounThe total weight of muscle in your body, critical for longevity.Learn MoreClose, studies have shown that doing 12-18 sets per week for each muscle group helps maximize this effect. This benefit also carries over to strength, Arent says. 

It sounds like a lot, but if you break it down into four sessions, this amount of exercise per muscle group becomes manageable, he says. 

“Let’s say you do two upper body days per week. If you do two different chest-and-back supersets within each workout, and you do three to four sets of each exercise, you can pretty easily get to 12-18 sets per week,” Arent tells Super Age.

He adds that those exercises also have spillover effects for smaller muscles: Most chest exercises also tax the triceps, and most back exercises, like rows and pullups, also target your biceps. 

3. Move the “big rocks first”: Those spillover effects are why both experts say to build the foundation of your two hours of training on multi-joint exercises that work multiple muscles at once. 

“One of the biggest misconceptions is that people need more volume or more variety,” Aidala says. “If someone only has 120 minutes per week, I’d rather see them build strength around a handful of fundamental movement patterns with progressive overload[pruh-gres-iv oh-ver-lohd]nounGradually increasing workout intensity to build strength and endurance.Learn MoreClose than try to do everything.”

Exercises like squats, lunges, deadlifts, bench press, rows, lat pulldowns, pushups, and pullups all move multiple joints in each repetition, meaning multiple muscle groups are being taxed. 

These, our experts say, should be the foundation of each training session. If there are single-joint exercises that you enjoy (and you’ve got time), these can be added on after the “big rocks” get moved.

4. Leave 2-3 reps in reserve on every set: One mistake trainees make when training for time efficiency, Aidala says, is choosing a weight that’s too light. They wind up doing lots and lots of reps, or even quitting sets before they really start to feel taxed. 

His suggestion for saving time and building strength, size, and endurance together: Choose a weight that allows you to do 8-12 repetitions in each set, with the set ending when you could do 2 or maybe 3 more repetitions before failing.

This is called leaving “reps in reserve,” and it’s been found to be almost as effective for gaining strength as continuing until you fail at the exercise in each set. But the “reps in reserve” method is less unpleasant (meaning you’re more likely to be consistent), and results in less soreness the next day.

5. Move explosively and side to side: As we age, we lose power — the ability to produce force quickly — much faster than we lose muscle and strength. A loss of power can make us less likely to recover when we’re about to fall down. And if we’ve also lost agility and balance, two key biomarkers of aging, then we’re more likely to start falling in the first place.

By including some explosive movement in each training session, where we’re moving our own bodyweight weight so forcefully that it leaves the ground, we’ll be able to maintain power, Arent says. This can mean some small jumps, medicine ball slams, hops, or bounds.

And we can also maintain balance and agility by including movements that force us to go side to side. Once we’ve left organized sports, adults often only move in what’s called the “sagittal plane,” going directly forwards and backwards. When we need to shift to the side, we can lose our balance. By adding sideways lunges, shuffles, and other lateral movements to our 120 minutes, you can ensure that you’ll use it, not lose it. 

How to Use This Info: The Right Workouts and Exercises for Your 120 Minutes of Strength

The truth, Arent says, is that any way you get to 120 will help: That could mean three total-body sessions of 40 minutes each. It could be two total-body lifts and a high-intensity interval strength class. It could be all classes. It could be five sessions of 25 minutes each.

His preference? Four sessions per week: Two upper-body strength sessions, and two lower-body workouts. With two to three supersets on each day, he says, these four sessions can quickly add up to the 12-18 sets per body part you’re aiming for in your two hours.

Aidala prefers to focus his three or four sessions on five core movement patterns: One focused squat, hinge, push, pull, and carry move. In each session, supersets are built so that one move is done from each category, with extra time for any “bonus” moves you want.

No matter which pattern you follow, be sure to start by warming up thoroughly. Get your heart pumping with 5-10 minutes of cardio, and move your joints through full ranges of motion. Then, use these exercise guides to build your own ultimate 120.

Upper/Lower Body Splits: Exercises to Build Four Weekly Sessions

To create workouts that match Arent’s vision, start each session with an explosive movement. For lower body sessions, this could be as simple as jumping rope. You could also do skater hops (see the bottom of the article for exercise descriptions), squat jumps, or scissor lunges. For upper body explosion, try some medicine ball slams.

On your upper body days, build 2-3 push-and-pull supersets. To do a superset of this kind, start with the chest move, then move to the back exercise with minimal rest. Perform 3-4 rounds of each exercise pair, working in each set until you have 2-3 repetitions in reserve.

Exercises to choose for your upper body moves can include:

On your lower body days, build 2-3 supersets that combine a squat- or lunge-type pattern and a hip hinging pattern. To do a superset of this kind, start with the squat/lunge move, then move to the hinge exercise with minimal rest. Perform 3-4 rounds of each exercise pair, working in each set until you have 2-3 repetitions in reserve.

Exercises to choose for your squat-, lunge-, and hinge-type moves can include:

Aidala’s Five Movement Patterns: Exercises to Focus on In Each Section

To do Aidala’s movement pattern-focused session, build three supersets for each session:

• Squat and hinge

• Push and pull

• Core and carry

You can create two to three variations of your own supersets, and cycle through them each week.

For the squat/hinge and push/pull sets, choose from the same exercises listed above. For the “core and carry” section, he suggests including a Super Age favorite: The farmer’s carry, which helps build endurance under load. Pair this move with a favorite core exercise like a plank or side plank.

Perform 3-4 rounds of each superset, working in each set until you have 2-3 repetitions in reserve.

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