Study: Weight training prevents heart disease

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Exercise: Quality versus quantity Tuesday, October 22, 2002 Posted: 4:01 PM EDT (2001 GMT) CHICAGO (AP)

Is it just me, or does this 17 percent difference between high intensity and low intensity not square with the percentages below?

High intensity/ 6 mph = 42% less likely than non-runners to get heart disease No benefit from low intensity/ 2 mph Low intensity = non-runner High intensity = 42% less likey than low intensity to get heart disease

I assume this is lousy reporting rather than the study. Either that or I really shouldn't try to think after a long day at work.

Faulty premise to begin with. Those researcher geeks need to do less debating and spend some time in the gym. My heart and lungs get a hell of a workout from weight training. A lot more than from a 'brisk

Agreed, although one summary I heard on the radio said that the weight training group worked out with weights for something like 30 minutes per week (could that possibly be right?). If that produced a significant reduction in heart attack risk, weight training must have a profound effect on the CP system.

Not really a faulty premise, but it is much more multifactorial than the report eludes to. The mode of exericse, intensity, and frequency definately do have various associations with a variety of risk factors for cardiovascular heart disease. There's also a strong genetic component as well.

Does physical activity reduce CVD? The epi studies show that there is a strong correlation, but these studies don't exactly delineate the variables. What many of the researchers are doing now is to examine each variable in exercise and how they correlate with CVD risk factors or markers. Others are investigating the mechanisms of each variable (e.g. what effects does resistance training or aerobic activity have on C-reactive protein and IL-6, a markers of inflammation and heart disease?)

So, yes, the comment that the 'workout for lungs and heart' may not be adequate and is not really all inclusive. There are many other players invovled here aside from just heart and lung capacity. For instance, frequently performed high intensity activities that involved the large muscles of the body (i.e. the lower body) reduce several markers for inflammation, insulin resistance and cardiovascular heart disease. Sorry, but weight training, the way that the general public performs it, does not elicit this effect. While most of the exercise protocols have utilized aerobic-type activities and few have used resistance training, some have measured associated markers with resistance training. And the data so far does not support that it elicits as great an effect as say running, jogging, or some other activity that uses the lower body for a high intensity and for a longer period of time than say 3x10 sets of squats.

Later,

It wasn't one of those studies where they made subjects do 30 minutes of exercise. They used lifestyle questionaires, and included everyone who weight trained 30 minutes or more in the statistic. I think it's safe to assume that some people spent much more than a half hour a week in the gym.

I guess I feel better. I don't know anyone who weight trains on a regular basis who does so for less than an hour per week, so I presume that the survey basically identified people who weight train on a regular basis at all.

The questionaire asked each particpant to mark each activity they performed and added WT later in the survey. In other words, a particpant could mark that he particpated in walking, rowing, racket sports and weight training. So it is very difficult to determine the sole contribution of weight training alone and its association to risk reduction.

I have the study if you want to examine the stats, Wayne. I know how good you are with sadistics. Besides, I don't trust epi studies.

Interesting.

I think I'll give this one a miss. The media gets all excited by such epi studies, but it hardly means anything at all.

I do. 30 minutes, once a week, for the last few years.