Older adults doing light weight lifting twice a week for 12 weeks can get about 20% stronger, even if they don't push themselves to their absolute limit every time.

41

Pro

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Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

41

Community contributions welcome

41

Low-Load Resistance Training Performed to Muscle Failure or Near Muscle Failure Does Not Promote Additional Gains on Muscle Strength, Hypertrophy, and Functional Performance of Older Adults

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2022 May 1

The study shows that older adults doing light weightlifting twice a week for 12 weeks got about 21-23% stronger, and it didn't matter if they pushed to exhaustion, almost to exhaustion, or just did a set number of reps.

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No contradicting evidence found

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According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Low-Load Resistance Training Performed to Muscle Failure or Near Muscle Failure Does Not Promote Additional Gains on Muscle Strength, Hypertrophy, and Functional Performance of Older Adults

Score: 41

DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003632

Similar Assertions

This claim says that light weight training doesn't really help older adults get bigger muscles, move faster, or get up and go quicker after doing it twice a week for 12 weeks.

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For older adults doing light weight training, pushing muscles to complete exhaustion doesn't give extra benefits like more strength or muscle growth compared to stopping before exhaustion, since both ways work about the same after 12 weeks.

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Lifting heavy weights three times a week for six weeks makes untrained young men much stronger than lifting light weights, even though both groups gain about the same amount of muscle size.

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If you're over 60 and lifting weights, doing it more than twice a week probably won't make you any stronger or give you bigger muscles than doing it just twice a week.

39

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Lifting heavy weights to the point of exhaustion three times a week for six weeks makes untrained young men much stronger than lifting lighter weights, even though both types of training build similar amounts of muscle size.

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