Research Impact: This ‘go-to’ snapshot review of the landscape of resistance exercise training for anxiety and depressive symptoms and disorders highlights moderate-to-large, potentially clinically meaningful improvements, particularly among those with stronger symptom severity. The article also provides a primer of largely understudied potential mechanisms that might help to explain the beneficial effects of resistance exercise training on these mental health outcomes, including increased insulin-like growth factor 1, cerebrovascular adaptations plausibly elicited by the inconsistent but patterned demands of RET on the vascular system that may re-regulate brain blood flow patterns, and potential neural adaptations resulting from controlled breathing inherent to resistance exercise.
Herring M.P., Meyer J.D. (2024). Resistance exercise for anxiety & depression: efficacy & plausible mechanisms. Trends in Molecular Medicine. doi.org/10.1016/j.molmed.2023.11.016. (IF: 13.6; Q1 Medicine, Research & Experimental; R=6/136; Decile 1)*
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