Do women benefit more from exercise than men?
In the past, exercise was often (stupidly) stereotyped as more of a guy’s thing, especially when it comes to weight training
Fortunately, I’ve noticed a positive shift in recent years, with women increasingly participating in various forms of exercise, including resistance and weight training!
At my gym, I definitely see WAY more women in the weights section now than I ever have before, which is fantastic!
We know that we all benefit from exercise, regardless of gender, but a recent study was published that actually suggests that women may even benefit from exercise more than men do when it comes to cardiovascular health and all-cause mortality risk.
So fascinating!
The prospective study included over 400,000 U.S. adults, with slightly over half of the participants being female. Participants provided survey data reporting their physical activity and the cohort was followed for over 20 years.
Unsurprisingly, the study found that regular physical activity was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality compared with being inactive (duh)… but here’s the fascinating part. Women specifically had a 24 percent lower risk of all-cause mortality while men had a 15% lower risk of all-cause mortality.
It goes without saying that physical exercise has so many more benefits besides just reducing all-cause mortality risk, but these results are fascinating when it came to gender differences and impact of exercise.
The researchers also found that men reached their maximal survival benefit with 300 minutes of moderate to physical exercise per week, while women reached a similar magnitude of effect as men at only 140 minutes per week, but continued to reach an even higher maximal survival benefit at 300 minutes per week.
You might be wondering, what type of physical activity led to these results? The findings were actually consistent across all types of aerobic training AND muscle strength training, emphasizing the importance of both types of exercise.
To summarize, the study suggests that women, compared to men, derived greater gains in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risk reduction from the same amount of physical activity.
These findings continue to emphasize the importance of aerobic and strength training for men and women, but particularly women, and it’s great to see this becoming much more normalized in the fitness world.
Read the full study here.
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