Minimal-dose resistance exercise for people who do not lift
One session a week, one set per exercise, daily "snacks", practising a maximal lift or a few maximal eccentric contractions each raise strength over doing nothing; once-weekly and single-set training have the most support, and higher-volume programmes generally gain more
Nuzzo et al. define minimal-dose resistance exercise as training that falls short of professional guidelines (2-3 sessions a week, 8-10 exercises, 1-3 sets of 8-15 reps) but can still raise strength, and overview five strategies in people not currently lifting.
"Weekend Warrior" puts the week's sets into one session; single-set training does one set of 7-10 exercises two or three times a week; resistance "snacks" are a few minutes of exercise once or more a day; "practising the strength test" is one maximal repetition (or isometric maximal contraction) per set; minimal eccentric doses are a few submaximal or maximal lowering-only repetitions.
All five raised strength in the studies tabulated. Once-weekly and single-set training are the most strongly supported and the most "real-world" (multiple exercises, major muscle groups); snacks and minimal eccentrics are emerging, and the maximal-effort approaches are mostly proof-of-concept single-muscle laboratory studies.
The authors state that minimal doses gain less than fuller programmes when volume is not matched, and recommend them as "better than nothing" and as a possible gateway, leaving the choice of strategy to adherence and preference.
Included studies
Method: an overview, not a systematic review, chosen because minimal-dose interventions are scattered and often not labelled as such; non-systematic ("snowballing") searches; the authors acknowledge that studies may be missing and that study quality was not assessed.
Population: mostly participants with little or no recent resistance training; trained participants are included where untrained data were scarce, and marked.
Tables: Weekend Warrior (Table 5, ≥4 exercises once a week, 14 studies, mean ages 23-73, 10 of them in adults aged 55 and over), single-set (Table 6, ≥4 exercises ≥2 days/week), snacks (Table 7, healthy adults and neck/shoulder-pain patients), practising the isometric strength test (Table 8, mostly older single-muscle laboratory studies), minimal eccentric doses (Table 9, mostly elbow flexors on isokinetic dynamometers).
Key Results
| Strategy | Typical dose (Table 4) | Evidence summarised |
|---|---|---|
| Weekend Warrior | 8-10 exercises, 1-3 sets, 8-12 reps, 60-80% max, 1 day/week, ≥45 min | Once-weekly multi-exercise training raised strength vs no exercise; e.g. 24 weeks of 8 exercises × 3 sets at 80% in 69-year-olds: +21-74% 1RM (control 0-10%). At equated weekly volume, frequency does not change gains |
| Single-set | 7-10 exercises, 1 set, 6-20 reps, 60-85% max, 2 or 3 days/week, 30 min | Gains of ~20% in the exercise groups, larger than usually seen in controls (few trials had controls); e.g. 24 weeks in 67-year-olds: +17% and +18% vs −9% in controls |
| Resistance "snacks" | 1-5 exercises, 1 set, ~12 reps, ≤80% max, 5-7 days/week, 2-10 min ≥2 times a day | Older adults: two 9-min body-weight snacks a day for 28 days improved sit-to-stand, leg-press power and thigh CSA vs control; another 4-week remote programme did not beat control on sit-to-stand (adherence 97, 82 and 81%). 2 min a day of band lateral raises raised strength and cut neck/shoulder pain |
| Practising the strength test | ≥1 exercise, 1 rep, 100% max, 2-7 days/week, ≤5 min | Daily maximal isometric contractions raise isometric strength (single-muscle studies); 1RM practice twice a week for 8 weeks matched 4 sets to failure for strength but gave less hypertrophy |
| Minimal eccentric doses | ≤5 exercises, 1-5 sets, ≤6 eccentric-only reps, 50-100% max, 1-7 days/week, ≤10 min | One 3-s maximal eccentric contraction of the elbow flexors once a day, 5 days a week for 4 weeks: +10-15% strength; 3 days a week ~3%; once a week no change; no hypertrophy |
Distribution beats concentration for tiny doses: 6 maximal eccentric contractions 5 days a week raised strength 9.3-13.5%, while the same 30 contractions in one weekly session (or 6 once a week) changed nothing (Yoshida, cited).
Daily vs spread practice: maximal grip training over 18 consecutive days raised peak force 9.7% (trained hand) vs 14.6% when the same 18 sessions were spread over 6 weeks, but the untrained hand got stronger sooner with the daily schedule.
Time savings: rest-pause sets cut a session from ~57 to ~35 min with comparable gains in trained people; drop sets and rest-pause raise discomfort and suit people already training.
Context: ~80% of people do not meet muscle-strengthening guidelines and ~58% do none at all; lack of time is a leading reason.
Mechanisms
Measured (in the cited studies): a brief maximal contraction recruits the whole motor-neuron pool in seconds; in one cited study a single sustained contraction to failure at 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% MVC gave the same ~10% strength gain, the maximal one in the least time.
Authors' interpretation: with equated weekly volume, frequency does not change gains in size and strength, so one session can carry a week's volume; higher frequency helps through extra volume, not frequency itself.
Authors' interpretation: eccentric strength is ~40% higher than concentric, and ordinary equipment loads to the weaker concentric phase, so eccentric-only work may be a more potent minimal dose; new equipment makes it practical.
Inference: the minimal doses that gain strength without hypertrophy (1RM practice, single maximal eccentrics) are likely neural and skill effects; the paper does not test this.
Practical Application
What is the least lifting that makes a non-lifter stronger? One session a week, or one set per exercise 2-3×/week, raised strength over nothing (~20% in single-set trials), though less than full programmes; to KEEP strength see [REF-587]. Daily snacks, maximal-lift practice and single maximal eccentrics also worked in smaller, mostly laboratory studies.These are starting doses for people who do not lift; for the least lifting that KEEPS strength, the base's source is REF-587 (about 1 session a week and 1 set per exercise at maintained load in younger adults; 2 sessions and 2-3 sets in older ones).
Spread a tiny dose across the week rather than bunching it. In the eccentric studies a few maximal contractions on 5 days beat the same number on one day (single-muscle laboratory data).
Effort matters when the dose is small. The minimal doses that worked were heavy, to near-failure, or maximal; easy body-weight snacks gave mixed results in older adults — one programme improved sit-to-stand, leg-press power and thigh size, another did not beat control on sit-to-stand (inference from the tables).
Prefer what the athlete will repeat. The authors make no ranking beyond the strength of evidence; adherence decides.
Limitations
Non-systematic overview: no search protocol, no quality or risk-of-bias assessment, and the authors acknowledge studies may be missing. Percentages in the tables are within-group changes from heterogeneous tests (1RM, isometric, isokinetic), not pooled effects.
Few cited trials had a non-exercising control group; "greater than typically observed in control groups" is a comparison across studies.
Practising the strength test and minimal eccentrics rest mostly on single-joint, single-limb laboratory studies (often isokinetic dynamometers); the authors call them proof of concept without ecological validity.
Supervision and encouragement in the cited studies may inflate effects relative to unsupervised training, especially for the maximal-effort approaches.
Not a maintenance review and no endurance-performance outcomes; athletes are explicitly outside its focus apart from a note on Nordic hamstring work.
Conflicts of interest: two authors (JLN, MP) were previously employed at Vitruvian, a company that designs and sells resistance-exercise equipment, and the review discusses connected adaptive machines; funding was open-access support and PhD scholarships.
How this entry was checked and changed
Why this level
narrative review without systematic method; its tables gather controlled and uncontrolled trials, many of them proof-of-concept single-muscle studies, and two authors were previously employed by a resistance-exercise equipment company; read from the full text
Full text (checked 2026-10-15)
Guidelines: two or three resistance exercise sessions per week, eight to ten exercises, one to three sets of 8–15 repetitions; approximately 80% do not meet guidelines and approximately 58% do no muscle-strengthening activities (full text).
Table 4 doses: Weekend Warrior 8–10 exercises, 1–3 sets, 8–12 reps, 60–80% max, 1 day/week, ≥ 45 min; single-set 7–10 exercises, 1 set, 6–20 reps, 60–85% max, 2 or 3 days/week, 30 min (full text).
Single-set trials: strength gains in the exercise groups "(~ 20%)" greater than typically seen in controls (full text).
Once-weekly in 69-year-olds (Taaffe): 8 exercises × 3 sets × 8 reps at 80% for 24 weeks, 21–74% vs 0–10% in controls; single-set in 67-year-olds (Vincent): 17% and 18% vs − 9% (full text).
Snacks: adherence 97, 82, and 81%; 2 min of daily lateral raises reduced neck/shoulder pain (full text).
One 3-s maximal eccentric contraction once per day, 5 days per week, over 4 weeks improved strength by 10–15%; three days per week ~ 3%; once per week no change (full text).
Daily grip training 9.7 and 7.8% vs 14.6 and 12.5% for the traditional programme (full text).
Rest–pause: session time ~ 57 min reduced to ~ 35 min; concentric strength ~ 40% less than eccentric (full text).
Conflict of interest: JLN and MP were previously employed at Vitruvian (full text).