Carolyn Kent

Despite a mountain of research on its benefits, less than ¼ of the population performs resistance training on a daily basis. The primary reason cited: Lack of time. Given the importance of muscle-strengthening exercise, developing strategies to overcome this barrier has become a primary focus of my career. Our narrative review published in Sports Medicine (PMID: 34125411) provided evidence-based recommendations on how to design time-efficient resistance-training programs while still promoting appreciable results. Some key takeaways: Prioritize multi-joint exercises. At minimum, consider a lower-body press (e.g., squat), upper-body push (e.g., bench press), and upper-body pull (e.g., pull-up/row). Weekly volume matters more than frequency. If time is limited, accumulating sufficient weekly volume appears more important than how many days you train. We recommended at least ~4 sets per muscle group per week as a practical minimum effective dose. A moderate repetition range is highly time-efficient. We suggested emphasizing approximately 6–15 RM, although hypertrophy can be achieved across a much wider range of loads when sets are performed with high effort. Use advanced techniques to save time. Supersets, drop sets, and rest-pause training can substantially reduce workout duration while maintaining training volume. For example, research on supersets indicates that training time can be cut by roughly 50% while producing similar adaptations, although fatigue may be greater. Take-home: You don't necessarily need to spend hours in the gym to make good gains. If time is limited, prioritize the exercises and training variables that provide the greatest return on your investment. A well-designed, abbreviated program can still produce meaningful improvements in strength and muscle development. 💪 Importantly, these recommendations are aimed at making training more time-efficient—not maximizing muscular gains regardless of time commitment. link.springer.com/article/10…

As we age, muscle power declines more rapidly than muscle strength, potentially increasing the risk of debilitating falls. This raises an important question: Should older adults prioritize power training in addition to traditional strength training? Our systematic review and meta-analysis, led by @ExerciseBiology, compared power training—performing the lifting phase of an exercise as fast as possible while controlling the lowering phase—with traditional, slower-velocity strength training. The analysis included 20 randomized controlled trials involving 566 older men and women (mean of ~70 years of age). Results showed that power training produced a statistically significant advantage across multiple measures of physical function. Although the overall magnitude of the effect was relatively modest (SMD = 0.30), these improvements could conceivably be practically meaningful and potentially help reduce the risk of falls in older adults. Importantly, power training does not require specialized or unconventional exercises. In most studies, participants performed traditional resistance exercises, with the key distinction being an instruction to lift the weight as fast as possible during the concentric phase while maintaining control during the lowering phase. Take-home: Traditional resistance training remains highly beneficial for older adults, but performing the lifting phase with maximal intended velocity may provide an additional benefit for muscle power and physical function without compromising strength or muscle development. This doesn’t mean that power training needs to be performed across all sets all the time; simply devoting a portion of training to I’d the that the certainty of the evidence was relatively low, with most studies involving small samples and relatively short (~12-week) interventions. Thus, the findings should be considered promising rather than definitive. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam…