May 14, 2025
Adding twice-a-week strength training to your regular routine may help to gird the brain against the ravages of dementia, a new report suggests. After six months, older volunteers at high risk of dementia who practiced resistance training, the kind that builds strength and muscle, had better memory and thinking skills and less brain wasting than their peers who did not do strength-building exercises.
The study was small, involving 44 older men and women with mild cognitive impairment, a brain condition that causes serious memory loss. Many people with mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, go on to develop full-blown Alzheimer’s disease, though the condition is sometimes reversible and not everyone with it will develop dementia.
For the study, researchers in Brazil divided the participants into two groups. Half underwent a resistance exercise program that featured weight training sessions on workout machines twice a week. The sessions were somewhat rigorous, consisting of three sets of 10 repetitions involving 10 major muscle groups. Examples included seated leg curls, leg presses, chest fly exercises, leg extensions, and lat pulldowns. Exercises were done at moderate to high intensity, with progressively higher weight loads at up to 80 percent of maximum capacity. The other half did not do any special extra exercise routines and served as controls.
Volunteers in both groups also underwent memory tests at the start of the study and again at the end, six months later. They also had MRI brain scans to look for changes in brain anatomy.
After six months, the volunteers who did the weight training scored higher on tests of visual episodic memory, or the ability to recall when and where specific events occurred in the past, compared to their non-exercising peers. This type of memory is typically compromised by Alzheimer’s disease, particularly in its early stages.
Resistance training also appeared to change the brain physically. Those who did the strength exercises had less atrophy, or wasting, in the hippocampus and precuneus, brain areas typically impaired in Alzheimer’s disease.
“A characteristic of people with mild cognitive impairment is that they have volume loss in some brain regions associated with the development of Alzheimer’s,” said study author Isadora Ribeiro of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Sao Paulo. “But in the group that did strength training, the right side of the hippocampus and precuneus were protected from atrophy.”
The resistance exercises also helped to preserve the integrity of the brain’s white matter, which is essential for communication between brain cells. White matter degeneration is associated with impaired cognition and may be an early marker of Alzheimer’s disease.
“The study showed that weight training is a strong ally against dementia, even for people who are already at high risk of developing it,” Dr. Ribeiro said. The findings were published in the journal GeroScience.
The authors note that weight training may protect the brain against dementia on two fronts: by stimulating the production of neural growth factor, an important protein for the growth, maintenance and survival of neurons, and lowering levels of body-wide inflammation. Increasingly, researchers link high levels of inflammation with an increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease.
The exercise machines used in this study are commonly found in most gyms, providing a wide range of workouts for different muscle groups. Older adults with mobility challenges can adapt the exercises at home by incorporating resistance bands, chairs, or light hand weights. Regardless of age, what’s good for the body can be good for the brain, a growing body of research shows.
By ALZinfo.org, The Alzheimer’s Information Site. Reviewed by Eric Schmidt, PhD, of The Fisher Center lab at The Rockefeller University.
Source: Isadora C. Ribeiro, Camila V. L. Teixeira, Thiago J. R. de Resende, et al: “Resistance training protects the hippocampus and precuneus against atrophy and benefits white matter integrity in older adults with mild cognitive impairment.” GeroScience, January 2, 2025
