63: The Strength Training Paradox with Dr. Jeremy Loenneke

The InForm Fitness Podcast

Researchers have recently uncovered that ‘those who are strong, live longer.’ Moreover, people who exercise get stronger. Therefore, as logic would dictate, people who exercise should live longer. Right? Well, maybe not.

On our last episode, #62- The Cardio Myth, we attempted to reframe common thinking about Aerobics. On this episode, with Dr. Jeremy Loenneke, Asst. Professor at Ole’ Miss, we discuss his recent findings that challenge long held beliefs about strength training. Does getting stronger help you live longer? And if not, what’s the point of it all?

Here’s another common belief: Developing bigger muscles causes them to become stronger. In other words, you can’t get stronger unless your muscles are also getting bigger. Obviously, true? Not according to Dr. Lonekke’s observations. He and his research team, have uncovered some interesting data that gets you saying, “Wait, what?”

You don’t want to miss this fascinating discussion between Adam and Jeremy on the influence strength training has on our strength, muscle size, health, and lifespan.

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Inform_Loenneke1_Sept30 Transcript

Arlene [00:00:01] The Inform Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman and co-host Mike Rogers is a presentation of Inform Fitness Studios, a small family of personal training facilities specializing in safe efficient high intensity strength training. On our bi monthly podcast Adam and Mike discuss the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and the urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And to replace those sacred cows with scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We'll cover exercise protocols and techniques nutrition sleep recovery the role of genetics in the response to exercise and much more.

Arlene [00:01:00] On this episode Adam welcomes Dr. Jeremy Loenneke, assistant professor at Ole Miss. They discuss his recent findings that challenge long held beliefs about strength training. Does getting stronger help you live longer and if not what's the point of it all?

Jeremy [00:01:15] If doing resistance exercise isn't really associated with all cause mortality, then being strong is. How do we reconcile those two things? Because they seem very related and they are very related. But that analysis is actually quite different.

Adam [00:01:32] Today we have with us Dr. Jeremy Loenneke assistant professor at the University of Mississippi Ole Miss. Dr. Loenneke graduated with a PHD in exercise physiology from the University of Oklahoma. He had previously earned his master's degree in nutrition and exercise science from Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Loenneke is a member of the American College of Sports Medicine and American Physiological Society. He also serves as a peer reviewer for several journals including the Sports Medicine AGE, Medicine & Science and Sports and Exercise and the Journal of Applied Physiology. On this episode we are going to go into strength and all cause mortality and we're going to be getting into also is muscle hypertrophy or increase in muscle size leading to or causing muscle strength. Jeremy welcome.

Jeremy [00:02:25] Thanks for having me.

Adam [00:02:26] I was really intrigued by your talk that you gave at the Rec Conference and you titled it Only the Strong Survive... Fact or Fiction. And as scientists, I was a former scientist. You're a current scientist and you know we are always questioning our dogma and you're not doing your job if you're not constantly questioning your current belief system. This talk, Only the Strong Survive certainly did that and that's why one of the reasons to have you on. I want you to talk about this thing you talked about which was it had to do with strength and all cause mortality. What prompted this conversation and this talk.

Jeremy [00:03:06] Yeah I think that we've done a little bit of cross sectional population level statistics on some of these studies. There's a database in the United States called InHains. And it's freely accessible to anyone and it's useful if you have some population level questions and we and others have been interested in this idea of strength and its relationship with all forms of different types of health as well as all cause mortality. And if you look at the literature some of the things that you see, there's relationships in other words the stronger you are the less likely you are to die. I think that's an interesting topic and I think it means different things than what a lot people think it means. So I thought it would be a useful kind of topic to discuss for people who are interested in strength training because I think that resistance exercise and exercise in general is very useful but I don't know that that literature necessarily can substantiate the importance of resistance exercise. But if you look at some of the data particularly the ones the study that we did we found just as other people have found that those who are strong tend to be less likely to die prematurely. The other thing that we found though is that most of the people who are strong aren't participating in exercise. So that's why I don't think that you can use that as a reason why people should exercise because those two things aren't really the same thing the analysis is a little bit different. And I think that one of the things that we've thrown around is trying to figure out how to explain some of that data. So if doing resistance exercise isn't really associated with all cause mortality but being strong is. How do we reconcile those two things because they seem very related and they are very related but that analysis is actually quite different.

Adam [00:05:02] Well doesn't resistance training make you stronger.

Jeremy [00:05:05] Yeah exactly. And that's why we spent several hours trying to figure out how to make sense of that. In other words if you look at those studies those who are strong are less likely to die. And we know that lifting weights gets you stronger. So it would seem intuitive that you could just connect those two dots. I guess the point is is that when you look at the people included in that study as well as other studies the majority of them are not actually lifting weights. The majority of them are not actually exercising. Meaning that those who are the strongest seem like they have something innately different about them. And in fact it's not necessarily those who are the strongest. If you look at a lot of those studies a lot of it comes down to just not being the weakest. So as long as you're not the weakest category you tend to have a similar risk.

Adam [00:05:57] Wow. So we are exercising I mean you not obviously saying don't exercise or maybe you are I don't know. I mean are you looking at maybe as a group of people that are exercising and they're...