Research
Mixed
The magnitude of depressive symptom reduction from resistance exercise training is larger in individuals with mild to moderate depression compared to those with subclinical symptoms.
If you are experiencing mild to moderate depressive symptoms, resistance exercise training is likely to provide a substantial reduction in those symptoms. While it also helps those with subclinical symptoms, the effect is significantly larger for those with elevated baseline scores.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
The larger percentage reduction found from RCTs of participants with elevated depressive symptoms, coupled with the significant difference based on initial severity of depressive symptoms, suggests that RET may be particularly helpful for reducing depressive symptoms in people with greater depressive symptoms.
Why this rating
Based on subgroup analysis within the meta-analysis.
Source
Association of Efficacy of Resistance Exercise Training With Depressive Symptoms
Brett R. Gordon et al. · JAMA Psychiatry · 2018
DOI 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.0572
Meta-analysis · 33 studiesCited 462×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Resistance exercise training (RET) significantly reduces depressive symptoms in adults, regardless of health status, total prescribed volume, or strength improvements.Good
- The observed antidepressant effect of resistance exercise training is smaller in trials where allocation and/or assessment was blinded, indicating that unblinded trials may overestimate the effect due to bias.Good
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