How Low Can You Go?

Good news for those of us who are "resistance training hesitant," light activity helps with recovery and your weekly recommendations.

The Rundown

How Low Can You Go? Outside journalist Alex Hutchinson recently highlighted a review in Sports Medicine where an international group of researchers looked at the existing studies on minimalist resistance training. Basically, they wanted to find out how little weight you can lift and still get meaningful strength gains.

Typically, a systematic meta-analysis takes all the results of all the studies on a topic, creates one dataset and extracts a training formula. For this review, the researchers chose a narrative, or a summary of all the studies, instead. They did this because the resistance training literature is too diverse in terms of the types of strength training, the characteristics of the participants and the ways that outcomes are measured.

The main finding was that people who are “resistance training-hesitant” can get significant gains from one workout per week that has one set of 6 to 15 reps. The weight should be between 30 and 80 percent of one-rep max and the movements should be multi-joint. Think squats, deadlifts and bench press.

It’s not clear whether this minimalist program would keep producing gains over a longer time period and you would need to keep increasing the weight so that you’re pushing your body to adapt.

But the point here is not to maximize gains, it’s to achieve a minimum stimulus. And for this purpose, the review suggests that a robust full-body workout once a week is enough to keep a minimum level of muscular fitness.

Sleep vs. Activity for Recovery. Sleep is important for enhancing performance but is it the best way to improve recovery in the short term?

For their study, researchers out of Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom recruited ten male rugby players who were randomly assigned to either a sleep extension group or an active recovery group. Both groups participated in two evening training sessions, seven days apart.

After each session, the sleep group extended their time in bed up to ten hours and returned for testing at 11:00 a.m. the morning after training while the active recovery group started a light workout at 7:30 a.m. The workout was 15 minutes on a stationary bike at 50 percent max heart rate, followed by 15 minutes of upper and lower body stretching and mobility exercises.

Before, immediately after, and 36 hours post training, the researchers assessed neuromuscular, perceptual and cognitive measures of fatigue.

They found that the sleep extension group had a faster recovery in cognitive performance. But, the active recovery group had quicker neuromuscular function and autonomic recovery.

While this was a small study, it’s useful to think about when you need to get ready for a game, a race or a tough workout. You should prioritize sleep but you shouldn’t disregard easy aerobic exercise to aid your recovery.

Extra Point

Watch

Hardball: The Girls of Summer. This documentary covers a sport that doesn’t get much attention, as it tells the story of the top U.S.-based female baseball players. Centered around the Women’s Baseball World Cup, it explores the fight for equality, recognition and acceptance. Hardball is streaming for free on Peacock and available to rent on Prime Video.

Listen

The Root Cause Medicine Podcast. In this podcast, hosts Dr. Kate Henry and Dr. Carrie Jones talk to medical experts and specialists to give listeners the information they need to understand the root cause, symptoms and treatments for medical conditions. Recent episodes discuss chronic inflammation, the microbiome and how dumbbells can heal trauma while building muscle.

Read

You Can Get Fit Without Breaking the Bank and ChatGPT May Help. A personal trainer discusses how AI could be your new workout instructor and other ways you can save money while getting fit in this piece for CNBC.com.