Strength training helps women
A new women-only gym opening in Williamsburg cites a Journal of the American College of Cardiology finding that strength training is associated with a 2–3 times greater mortality reduction in women than in men — a striking claim that reframes lifting as a longevity intervention for women. The same coverage notes the CDC estimate that only 26.9% of women regularly perform strength training, which helps explain the new gym’s positioning and messaging. That gap between benefit and participation is exactly why female-focused lifting spaces are emerging now. (greenpointers.com) (greenpointers.com)
A women-only gym opened in Williamsburg this week with a pitch that sounds more like preventive medicine than fitness marketing: lift weights, and women may get a bigger survival benefit than men from doing it. The gym is called Tension, and it opened at 167 North 9th Street in Brooklyn. (greenpointers.com) The claim comes from a 2024 Journal of the American College of Cardiology study that analyzed more than 400,000 United States adults and found women got larger reductions in all-cause and cardiovascular death risk from the same amount of leisure-time exercise. For muscle-strengthening activity, the study found women had about a 19% lower risk of death, compared with 11% for men. (acc.org) (sciencedirect.com) Strength training means making muscles work against resistance, usually with dumbbells, barbells, machines, bands, or body weight. Public health guidelines treat it as its own category because stronger muscle changes blood sugar control, bone loading, balance, and the amount of force your body can produce in daily life. (cdc.gov) The federal guideline is simple: do muscle-strengthening activity at least 2 days a week, and work all major muscle groups. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that in 2020 only 26.9% of women met that muscle-strengthening guideline, compared with 35.2% of men. (cdc.gov 1) (cdc.gov 2) That gap gets wider with age. In the same Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, 34.1% of women ages 18 to 44 met the guideline, 23.8% of women ages 45 to 64 did, and only 17.2% of women 65 and older did. (cdc.gov) The study did not say women need extreme lifting programs. The biggest benefit for women appeared at about 140 minutes a week of aerobic exercise and about 1 strength-training session a week, while men needed more time to reach similar mortality reductions. (nih.gov) (acc.org) There is one important catch: this was an observational study, not a randomized trial. That means it found a strong association in long-term survey data, but it cannot prove that lifting weights by itself caused the lower death rates. (nih.gov) (sciencedirect.com) Even with that caveat, the pattern lines up with other things strength training does for women over time. The National Institutes of Health notes that regular exercise in women is linked to lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and muscle work also helps preserve bone and function as estrogen declines with age. (nih.gov) (cdc.gov) That helps explain why female-focused lifting spaces are popping up now. Tension describes itself as a women-only strength studio built around small-group classes, progressive overload, and “zero intimidation,” which is a direct answer to the fact that the health upside is large while participation is still low. (tensionstrength.com) (greenpointers.com) For years, a lot of gym marketing aimed women toward burning calories, getting smaller, or staying “toned.” This new pitch is different: pick up heavier things a couple of times a week, and you may be training for longer life, not just a different mirror. (acc.org) (greenpointers.com)
