Home LivingWellnessSleepWant to improve your sleep? Resistance training is your friend, says year-long studyAerobic workouts are typically prescribed to improve sleep, but new research shows resistance exercise is more effectiveWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Home LivingWellnessSleepWant to improve your sleep? Resistance training is your friend, says year-long studyAerobic workouts are typically prescribed to improve sleep, but new research shows resistance exercise is more effectiveWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Aerobic workouts are typically prescribed to improve sleep, but new research shows resistance exercise is more effective
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Getty)
(Image credit: Getty)
The studylasted a full year and involved 386 adults, all with a BMI that falls into the obese or overweight range and who were inactive and suffered from high blood pressure. They were split into four groups: one group would participate in aerobic exercise for the year, another would do just resistance exercises, and another would do a combination of the two styles. A final control group did no exercise for the year. Those groups exercising participated in supervised 60-minute sessions, three times a week (scroll down for more info on the workouts).
(Image credit: Getty Images)
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“While both aerobic and resistance exercise are important for overall health, our results suggest that resistance exercises may be superior when it comes to getting better ZZZs at night,” study author Angelique Brellenthin, assistant professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University, toldScienceDaily. “Resistance exercise significantly improved sleep duration and sleep efficiency, which are critical indicators of sleep quality that reflects how well a person falls asleep and stays asleep throughout the night.”
Her recommendation, if you’ve found your sleep quality has deteriorated, is to explore some resistance exercises: “Consider incorporating two or more resistance exercise training sessions into your regular exercise routine to improve your general muscle and bone health, as well as your sleep.”
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What kind of exercises could help you sleep?
So exactly what kinds of exercise yielded these results? The aerobic group could choose to work out on atreadmill, recumbent or uprightexercise bikeorelliptical trainer, and their heart rates were monitored to keep them in the range for moderate to vigorous-intensity exercise.
You’re probably more interested in the resistance group though. Here’s an example of the kind of workouts they took part in.
3 sets of 8 to 16 repetitions
The study group maintained 50-80% of their one-rep maximum (essentially maximum effort – here’s a quick1RM explainer, if you need it) throughout the sessions. They used 12 different resistance machines for their workouts, but if you fancy seeing if this kind of exercise could help improve your sleep, too, most of these can be achieved at home, with a little bit of kit.
To get you started, try thiseasy full-body single dumbbell workoutonly or this15-minute low-impact full-body workout. Both are excellent to tire out the entire body which is key to better sleep. We recommend doing these workouts in the morning or early afternoon as opposed to right before bed as exercising late might have an adverse effect on sleep quality (here’swhen you should stop exercising before bed).
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