What 137 Reviews Say About Getting Stronger
The American College of Sports Medicine released a new position stand on resistance training this year, and it is worth paying attention to because ACSM does not move fast for the sake of trends. These position stands are not influencer opinions. They are evidence-based reviews meant to summarize what the field can say with confidence.
The 2026 ACSM position stand, led by Brad Currier and colleagues and published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, pulled from 137 systematic reviews and more than 30,000 participants. The goal was to update the 2009 ACSM position stand and clarify how resistance training affects muscle function, hypertrophy, and physical performance in healthy adults.
The headline finding is almost boring, which is usually a good sign in health science. Compared with no exercise, resistance training significantly improved muscle strength, muscle size, power, endurance, contraction velocity, gait speed, balance, and multiple physical function outcomes.
That list matters because it moves strength training out of the narrow bodybuilding box. Lifting is not only about bigger muscles. It is about walking better, balancing better, producing force, moving with more control, and staying physically useful to yourself. That is the part many people miss when they think of strength training as something only for athletes, younger people, or anyone chasing a certain look.
The position stand also gets into the details of what appears to work best. Strength improved more when people used heavier loads, trained through a complete range of motion, performed two to three sets, trained at the beginning of the session, and lifted at least two times per week. Hypertrophy tended to respond to higher weekly volume and eccentric overload. Power responded to moderate loads moved with intent.
None of that means every person should walk into the gym and max out. It means resistance training is a skill. Variables matter: load, range of motion, exercise selection, session order, progression, and the speed or intent behind the movement. That is exactly why random workouts only take people so far.
A good class is not just a pile of exercises. It is a sequence. You warm up the pattern, learn the positions, build the strength piece, then apply conditioning in a way that still respects movement quality. The same movement can be scaled up, scaled down, slowed down, loaded differently, or swapped depending on what the person needs that day.
That is functional fitness when it is done right. It is not chaos, and it is not random high-intensity work wearing a harder name. Functional fitness should build capacity that transfers outside the gym: carrying groceries, getting off the floor, climbing stairs, picking up your kid, playing with your grandkids, working a physical job, or aging without feeling fragile.
For FitNKC members, this is the important part: consistency does not need to look extreme to work. Two or more well-coached resistance training sessions per week can be meaningful when structured, progressive, and intentional.
Bottom line: ACSM's new position stand confirms that resistance training improves far more than muscle size. Strength, power, gait speed, balance, endurance, and physical function all improve when people train consistently. That is the lane coached functional fitness is built for.
Currier, B. S., D'Souza, A. C., Fiatarone Singh, M. A., Lowisz, C. V., Rawson, E. S., Schoenfeld, B. J., Smith-Ryan, A. E., Steen, J. P., Thomas, G. A., Triplett, N. T., Washington, T. A., & Werner, T. J. (2026). American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand. Resistance training prescription for muscle function, hypertrophy, and physical performance in healthy adults: An overview of reviews. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 58(4), 851-872. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000003897
American College of Sports Medicine. (2026). Science Spotlight: ACSM releases new position stand on resistance training. https://acsm.org/science-spotlight-acsm-releases-new-position-stand-on-resistance-training
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