Minimal Effective Strength Training
You don't need as long in gym as you think
If your resolution was to finally get fit in 2026, some of your excuses are about to disappear. Assuming you still feel like hitting those goals a month into the new year.
Most people think fitness requires hours in the gym each week. But a growing body of research suggests that’s simply not the case. You can start seeing real health and strength benefits from surprisingly small amounts of exercise — as long as the effort matters. In other words… the dose matters. This is the idea behind what researchers call minimum effective dose training.
Rather than endless workouts, the goal is simple: do just enough to stimulate change. And for most of us, that’s much less than we imagine. That was one of the reasons I wrote Enough, Better and Optimal this past week. My goal was to show you how much exercise is needed to move the longevity needle dramatically. Here’s the post:
Enough, Better, and Optimal: How to Think About An Exercise Framework When Fear Is the Barrier
Most people understand that we need to move to be healthy and fit. You can call it exercise or not. But movement is critical for proper human function to follow.
For the longest time, we thought we had to walk 10,000 steps/ day for it to be meaningful. Now we know that’s not true. It turns out that the same is true for resistance training. But the dose matters. More on that in a moment.
