Research

Mixed

Meeting both aerobic (≥150 min/week) and muscle-strengthening (≥2 sessions/week) physical activity guidelines is associated with the lowest prevalence of chronic health conditions compared to meeting neither, only aerobic, or only muscle-strengthening guidelines.

To maximize protection against chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and depression, aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity (like brisk walking) per week PLUS two days of muscle-strengthening activities (like resistance bands or bodyweight exercises). Doing both together offers significantly better health outcomes than doing just one.

ModerateSupportsHIGH confidence
After adjustment for covariates... meeting the combined MVPA-MSA guidelines was associated with the lowest PRs for all health conditions (APR range: 0.44–0.76), and the clustering of ≥6 chronic health conditions (APR = 0.33; 95% CI: 0.31–0.35).
Jason A. Bennie et al. · International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity · 2019

Why this rating

Large sample size (n=383,928) and robust statistical adjustment, but cross-sectional design prevents causal inference.

Source

The epidemiology of aerobic physical activity and muscle-strengthening activity guideline adherence among 383,928 U.S. adults

Jason A. Bennie et al. · International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity · 2019

DOI 10.1186/s12966-019-0797-2

cross_sectional · n=383928Cited 222×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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