Lifting Weights Can Improve Severe Anxiety

There was a presentation at the recent American College of Sports Medicine meeting that provided a somewhat surprising result under the general heading ‘Exercise as Medicine’.  Researchers from the University of South Carolina set out to study potential benefits of exercise on anxiety symptoms. 

Thirty patients with a diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) were allocated to three groups for a 6-week regimen: the first group undertook resistance training, the second did aerobic exercise training, and the third was placed on a waiting list, acting as controls.  The subjects were allowed to continue any pharmacotherapy they were on.  Remission of their symptoms was measured using changes in the Penn State Worry Questionnaire score, and a Number-Needed-to-Treat (NNT) analysis was done.       

Resistance training consisted of graduated lower-body weightlifting sessions twice a week, while the aerobic exercise was twice-weekly leg cycling, also graduated, and matching the body region exercised in resistance training.

At the end of the 6 weeks there was remission in 60% of the patients in the resistance exercise group, compared with 40% in the aerobic exercise group, and 30% in the controls.  The NNT analysis showed 3.33 patients needed to be treated with weightlifting to get one successful remission, compared with 10 patients with aerobic exercise.

There are a lot of problems with this study.  The numbers are small – in fact, there were only 6 patients of 10 who showed remission with weightlifting vs. 4 of 10 with aerobic exercise.  A NNT analysis on these numbers hasn’t any value.  The assessment of “worry” as a measure of GAD leaves other GAD-listed symptoms of anxiety unanalyzed.  And the possible roles of different drugs in different patients were not reported.  It’s really only a hypothesis-generating study, demanding a much larger, more intensely-controlled study.  However, resistance training is, in general, a ‘good thing’, and an excellent partner to aerobic exercise, so it ought to be beneficial in most people with emotional problems.