A recent study suggests resistance exercise (or weight training) has specific and unique cardiovascular benefits. Although aerobic exercise is most commonly associated with promoting heart health, not as much was known about the benefits of resistance exercise until now.
Researchers compared blood vessel responses in resistance versus aerobic exercises. Their findings showed that resistance exercises produced significantly different, but also beneficial, cardiovascular effects.
Resistance exercise was found to cause greater increases in blood flow to the limbs than aerobic exercise was. Resistance exercise also led to longer lasting drops in blood pressure after exercise than aerobic was.
Lead researcher, Dr. Collier, said that resistance exercise has shown “many favorable cardiovascular benefits and should therefore be considered as part of a daily exercise training program.”
Because of the unique effects on blood pressure and limb blood flow that weight training produces, Dr. Collier encourages people to use weight training in conjunction with aerobic exercise for optimal cardiovascular results.
"This may be of greatest importance to women, as they can derive important weight-bearing benefits of resistance training to help prevent and/or treat osteoporosis," Dr. Collier adds.
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