According to the table in figure 2 in that study, the coefficient for weightlifting is 1.3, just below basketball at 1.4, and basketball is pretty aerobic all things considered. The confidence margins are fully within the side showing benefits for longevity, which would indicate, at least for this study, that weightlifting even at elite levels is a positive for health. I find it hard to believe then that if you lift less than a weightlifting athlete, you shorten your life. There are confounders somewhere in these studies.
The other thing to consider is the extremely wide range of exercises in weightlifting. If you do aerobic exercises, even the name gives away the game, “cardio”, no matter what you do, you mostly are affecting your heart and lungs, hence cardiopulmonary fitness. In addition, you can affect some isolated muscle groups, usually in endurance mode - running/cycling: leg muscles, rowing: legs, arms; nordic skiiing: legs, arms.
Meanwhile, in weightlifting, it’s almost all muscle groups, and frequently you do splits. So explain to me, how if you do 30 minutes of legs one day, and 30 minutes of upper body another day, and do each split twice a week, so you end up 4 sessions of 2 hours, you are suddenly shortening your life. I could kind of understand if you are doing 2 hours of whole body muscles, you could say the muscle that is exercised for 2 hours, say, legs, is just too much for those leg muscles, and 1 hour is tops. But what about splits, you get 1 hour legs and 1 hour upper body - so you are within the 1 hour mandate, but put together, and now you’re over the limit? This is hard to wrap one’s head around.
Then there is the issue that’s close to my approach. I do my version of circuit training, if by circuit training we understand a combination of muscle and cardio components. Specifically, I do two such sessions a week, so on Mondays and Thursdays, I’ll do 32 minutes of continuous ATG squats with a light weightvest of 45lbs. The squats are structured, so 2 minute warmup regular squats, then 5 minutes of slow descent (eccentric) and rapid ascent (concentric), then 5 minutes slow descent and explosive ascent (jump - plyometric element), and so on for a total of 32 minutes with zero breaks. That way I try to cover slow twitch and fast and very fast twitch muscles. There is definitely a cardio element. I can tell you, jumping squats with 45lbs for 5 minutes continuously is super, super cardio intense, I’m breathing very hard and sweating profusely, my heart is pounding. So since I’m doing both cardio and weights in the same exercise, where do I fall in the longevity limits of 1 hour per week with this modality of exercise? You might say that 45lbs and nonstop squats is not weightlifting. I beg to differ - it depends on how you do it, if you are descending slowly on the eccentric that is a hypertrophy stimulant, and if you are ascending explosively, jumping, the actual weight is much higher than the 45lbs because of momentum - the higher and stronger your jump, the more weight pressure because you are overcoming inertia. I know my leg muscles have grown tremendously with this protocol in the past two years. It’s definitely weightlifting.
My point here is that I don’t even know how to classify a lot of the exercise people do - like my version of circuit training. So how can you divide the effect like that, when cardio is combined with weightlifting and even elements of HIIT. And the huge variety of weightlifting protocols.
I also do a bunch of isometric leg exercises - 15 minutes 4 times a week. So f.ex. one exericise is to stand on a half bent leg on the ball of my foot - one leg - and do so for 7-8 minutes (while I brush my teeth) and then switch to the other leg for another 7-8 minutes. I can tell you it’s not easy. You many think this is worthless, but you’d be shocked - in 2 years, I absolutely, positively have added muscle mass to my calfs and all around my ankle and feet, because I can see it, my wife can see it and my slim cut pants have to be thrown out. I have muscle bulges just above the rim of my shoe, which were not there before. And the common wisdom is that isometric exercises don’t result in hypertrophy - BS. I have proof otherwise. So tell me, is isometric exercise that is hypertrophic for muscles classified as “weightlifting” and therefore I should add that one hour a week I do those as my limit not to shorten my life? Because it is not cardio. Is isometric exercise shortening my life?
I don’t know. This seems very, very laden with confounders and imprecision.
