Anyway You Want It

In this edition, you can put the heavy weights down if you want to, some good news for weekend warriors and your weekly recommendations.

The Rundown

Anyway You Want It. According to two new studies, weight training doesn’t have to feel hard to build strength. Countering widely held beliefs that only heavy weights are effective, the studies suggest that lifting light weights can result in the same amount of strength and mass as using their bulkier counterparts.

In one study, a group of middle-aged and older men and women who were new to weight training had their muscular strength, mass and endurance (or how long muscles remain active) assessed before being placed in one of two programs. In one program, half the volunteers used traditional heavy weights that they could lift 8 to 12 times at most. The other half used lighter weights that they could lift 20 to 24 times.

Both groups lifted to a fatigue point where they felt they could not raise or lower the weight again. If they could do more than either 12 or 24 repetitions, their weights were increased.

The researchers reassessed everyone’s muscles after 10 weeks of twice-a-week workouts. Across the board, their muscles were stronger, larger and more durable. But, there weren’t “meaningful differences” between the two groups, said Anoop Balachandran, the study’s lead author. The heavy lifters’ legs were a little stronger and the light lifters had slightly more full-body, muscular endurance.

The study, while small, demonstrates that there are different, feasible options. So lift heavy or lift light. As Balachandran says, “You can pick the approach you prefer.”

In another paper, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers did a large-scale review and found similar results. The team looked at 192 studies comparing different types of weight training to find out if there was a single combination of weights, sets and sessions that produced the largest gains in strength and muscle size.

They found small variations but not one single combination that worked better than another. People using heavy weights became marginally stronger and added a little extra muscle mass if they did more than one set of each exercise, but the additional gains were small. Echoing Balachandran, a co-lead author of the review says, “You can choose whatever appeals to you.”

Weekend Warriors Rejoice! If you do most of your exercise on the weekend rather than spreading it out, a new study from Massachusetts General Hospital has good news about your heart health. Concentrating physical activity in one or two days produced the same positive effects as distributing it more evenly across the week.

The researchers examined data from over 89,000 people taken from the UK Biobank who had their activity measured between 2013 and 2015. Wearables recorded the participants’ total physical activity and time spent at different exercise intensities over a week. A little over 42% of the volunteers were in the weekend warrior group, while 24% were in the regularly active group. The rest were in the inactive group.

The results found that the weekend warrior and regularly active group similarly lowered their risk of heart attack (27% vs 35%), heart failure (38% vs 36%), atrial fibrillation (22% vs 19%) and stroke (21% vs 17%).

Some limitations to note: Exercise was measured over one week and the volunteers may have modified their behavior while being observed. The UK-based sample was predominately White individuals, which may limit the study’s ability to generalize.

In an opinion piece on the study, two scholars argue that an individual’s response to physical activity is also variable. Some people may get health benefits from lower levels of exercise while others may need a higher amount of it to see benefits.

Still, the research highlights the flexible ways that exercise can be performed throughout the week to see positive health outcomes.

Extra Point

Watch

Quarterback. In the tradition of sports docuseries that offer viewers insider access, Netflix’s new Quarterback takes you inside the huddles and the homes of quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota. Executive producer Peyton Manning sums up the show this way, “We’ve never followed a quarterback throughout the entire season to see what he does Sunday night after a big win, after a brutal loss..on Mondays and Tuesdays on their off days. Are they hanging out? Are they playing golf? Are they in the weight room?” Spoiler alert: They aren’t playing golf. Quarterback is streaming now.

Listen

How to Breathe Correctly for Optimal Health, Mood, Learning & Performance. One more from Andrew Huberman and his Huberman Lab podcast this week because he does an interesting deep dive into something we all take for granted. As he writes in the episode summary, the discussion focuses on “the positive benefits of breathing properly for mood, to reduce psychological and physiological stress, to halt sleep apnea, and improve facial aesthetics and immune system function.”

Read

A Deep Dive Into the Science of Marathon Recovery. If you’ve ever wondered how a body recovers from running 26.2 miles, Alex Hutchinson has answers in this examination of “metabolomics.”