Now new research is lending weight to the idea that light resistance training may also slow the brain’s ageing process.
By late middle-age neurological studies have found that most of us begin developing holes or lesions in our brain’s white matter, which is the material that connects and passes messages between different brain regions.
Older people with many lesions tend to have worse cognitive abilities than those whose white matter is relatively intact.
Moderate regular aerobic exercise such as walking may slow the progression of white matter lesions in older people, say many studies.
But Teresa Liu-Ambrose, a professor of physical therapy and director of the Aging, Mobility, and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, also believes weight training could be an even better age-defying weapon.
To prove her theory, she tested a large group of generally healthy women between the ages of 65 and 75.
She tested the women’s gait speed and stability, then randomly assigned them to one of three groups.
Some began a supervised, once-weekly program of light upper- and lower-body weight training. A second group undertook the same weight-training routine but twice per week. And the third group, acting as a control, started a twice-weekly regimen of stretching and balance training.
All of the women continued their assigned exercise routines for a year.
At the end of that time, their brains were scanned again and their walking ability re-assessed.
The women in the control group, who had concentrated on balance and flexibility, showed worrying progression in the number and size of the lesions in their white matter and in the slowing of their gaits.
So did the women who had weight trained once per week.
But those who had lifted weights twice per week displayed significantly less shrinkage of their white matter than the other women.
Their lesions had grown and multiplied, but not nearly as much.
They also walked more quickly and smoothly than the women in the other two groups.
Dr Liu-Ambrose says exercise, including weight training, clearly has benefit for the brain.
“However we are just really now gaining an appreciation for how impactful exercise can be.”
