Strength Training for Older Adults
Progressive resistance training, two or three sessions a week, in later life: one way to carry out what the review summary this entry was written from reports: that any structured, progressive program improves strength, which in older adults pooled to a large effect on muscle strength.
Screen for cardiovascular and orthopedic conditions; begin conservatively and consider supervision for frail or high-fall-risk individuals.
- History of falls or balance impairment needing supervised assessment
- Uncontrolled cardiovascular disease
- Acute joint pain or recent fracture
How to do it
What the evidence says
This practice is one way to carry out what the sources on the concept entry (phys.strength.minimum-effective-dose) studied: resistance-training prescriptions and their effect on strength and muscle. Borde 2015 (meta-analysis) reports improved muscle strength in healthy older adults (mean SMD 1.57), larger with the longest training periods; Currier 2023 (meta-analysis) concludes that all resistance-training prescriptions can raise muscle strength and mass in healthy adults; Edouard 2023 (meta-analysis) concludes that as soon as individuals start training at a certain minimum dosage regularly, it is effective at improving muscle structure and function. The full account, source by source, is on the concept entry this practice links to (phys.strength.minimum-effective-dose).
- (myth: Older adults are too frail to lift weights.) CORRECTION: In older adults, a dose-response meta-analysis of 819 participants found a large effect of resistance training on muscle strength.
- (myth: It's too late to build muscle after 65.) CORRECTION: Resistance training improves strength in older adults; a dose-response meta-analysis of 819 older adults found a large effect on muscle strength.
- Does not diagnose, treat, or cure any disease or injury
- Not a substitute for individualized medical or physical-therapy advice
- Results vary between individuals; no guaranteed outcome
- Agreement
- consistent for this claim. Direction recorded for 3 of 4 sources; not yet recorded for the rest.
- The claim's outcome
- Outcome not yet recorded
- Certainty
- No source states a certainty rating.
What each source measured and concluded (4)
- What it measured
- Muscle strength and hypertrophy.
- How it measured it
- Muscle strength: 1RM test, isometric maximum voluntary contraction, isokinetic maximum voluntary contraction. Muscle hypertrophy: Ultrasonography, MRI, CT, bioelectrical impedance, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, hydrostatic weighing, air displacement plethysmography, microscopy.
- How it was read
- read in full text
- What the review says it includes
- systematic review and meta-analysis
- Studies and participants, as stated
- N = 8,461 participants across 192 studies
- What it measured
- Muscle strength (chest and quadriceps)
- Direction it states for the claim's outcome
- Improved
- How it was read
- read in full text
- What it measured
- Muscle strength (via 1RM and MVC) and muscle morphology (via MRI, CT, DEXA, ultrasound, or BOD POD).
- How it measured it
- Validated measures such as 1RM and MVC for strength; MRI, CT, DEXA, ultrasound, or BOD POD for muscle morphology.
- Direction it states for the claim's outcome
- Improved
- How it was read
- read in full text
- What the review says it includes
- meta-analysis, systematic review
- Studies and participants, as stated
- N = 819 participants across 25 studies
- Heterogeneity, as stated
- Considerable large heterogeneity (I2 = 80%)
- What it measured
- Muscle strength, hypertrophy, and physical function.
- How it measured it
- Systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis of existing studies.
- Direction it states for the claim's outcome
- Improved
- Its conclusion, in its own words
- “It is highly encouraging to see that as soon as individuals start training at a certain minimum dosage regularly, it is effective at improving muscle structure and function.”
- How it was read
- read in full text
Each source below is shown with its study design and a link to the original study, or, where it is not a completed research paper, with what kind of record it is; those are not counted. This is the audit trail.
Why do some records show a record type instead of a study design?
A study design is shown for a completed, peer-reviewed paper. A registered protocol, a preprint, a conference abstract, a referee report or a book chapter has not been through peer review as a finished paper, so it is labelled for what it is, and it is counted in no source count. Where a record could not be confirmed as a completed paper at all, it says so rather than guessing. They all stay in the list, and their DOI still resolves, because the count of what was screened is part of the audit trail.
- Protocol / registration A registered plan for a review or trial, not its results.
- Preprint Posted by its authors before peer review.
- Conference abstract A conference summary rather than a peer-reviewed paper.
- Peer-review report A referee's report on a paper, not the paper itself.
- Guideline / position stand A recommendation derived from evidence, which is a step further from the data than the evidence itself.
- Book chapter A chapter in a scholarly book rather than a journal paper.
- Type not recorded Our record does not say what kind of publication this is, so it is counted in no source count. That is a gap in our data, not a judgement about the research.