Participants 8762 men aged 20-80.

Main outcome measures All cause mortality up to 31 December 2003; muscular strength, quantified by combining one repetition maximal measures for leg and bench presses and further categorised as age specific thirds of the combined strength variable; and cardiorespiratory fitness assessed by a maximal exercise test on a treadmill.

Conclusion Muscular strength is inversely and independently associated with death from all causes and cancer in men, even after adjusting for cardiorespiratory fitness and other potential confounders.

In other words, be strong and you’ll live longer no matter what.  Even if a rock falls on you, you can lift it off you.  If you get schmashed between two cars, you can push the one car off you, if you need to hang from a helicopter as it takes off you’ll not fall to your doom, if you need to run away from a rolling boulder and leap across a chasm it’ll help to be strong.

Also:

Make sure you squat…  Or else you might look like these guys.