Why Resistance Training Preserves Your Cardiovascular Health
I’ve always been a big advocate of resistance training for all health purposes, and researchers from Japan are showing us how important it is for cardiovascular health.
They took 104 males and classified them according to their age and whether or not they performed resistance training. They measured whole-leg blood flow in all groups because a decrease in that parameter is associated with metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular health, and this is what they found:
- There were no differences in whole-leg blood flow between the middle-aged and the young groups, only in those that performed resistance training, whereas, in the sedentary group, the middle-aged men showed a significant decrease in whole-leg blood flow.
- In the middle-aged group, the vascular conductance was significantly higher in those who performed resistance training, while, within the young, there were no differences between both groups.
In essence, lifting weights is extremely important to maintain good cardiovascular health throughout the aging process.
Link:
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00061.2005
Reference:
J Appl Physiol. 2005 Oct;99(4):1384-90. doi: 10.1152