- Everyone knows that exercise plays an important role in helping you live a long and healthy life.
- Many people face barriers that stop them from exercising throughout the week.
- A new study says people who are only able to workout on the weekends are still reaping similar health benefits to those they would had they had spread out their workouts throughout the week.
- These health benefits include a lowered risk of death from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all causes.
Everyone knows that exercise plays an important role in helping you live a long and
However, many people face
Now a new study recently published in the
These health benefits include a lowered risk of death from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all causes, compared to those who do not complete the suggested 150 minutes of physical activity every week.
For this study, researchers analyzed health and physical activity data from more than 93,000 adult participants of the UK Biobank.
Study participants were grouped into three different categories:
- active weekend warriors who completed most of their weekly exercise in 2 days
- active regular who spread their exercise out throughout the week
- inactive participants who did not complete the minimum 150 physical activity minutes each week.
At the study’s conclusion, researchers found that both the weekend warrior and active regular groups had a significantly lower risk of death from cancer, heart disease, and all causes when compared to the inactive group.
Additionally, the percentage risks were lower in the weekend warrior group when compared to the active regular group:
- cardiovascular disease mortality risk: 31% lower for weekend warriors and 24% lower for active regular
- cancer mortality risk: 21% lower for weekend warriors and 13% lower for active regular
- all-cause mortality risk: 32% lower for weekend warriors and 26% lower for active regular.
“You don’t need to exercise every day to stay healthy,” said Zhi-Hao Li, PhD, an epidemiologist in the School of Public Health at Southern Medical University in China and corresponding author in a press release.
“As long as you get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week — whether packed into one to two days or spread out — you can significantly reduce your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, cancer or other causes. This message is encouraging news for busy people who struggle to fit in daily workouts but can manage a concentrated burst of activity on weekends or over a couple of days,” Li added.
Keith Diaz, PhD, Florence Irving Associate Professor of Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and volunteer expert for the American Heart Association, told Medical News Today that studies like this one are essential because they help us refine our understanding of healthy exercise prescriptions.
“Just as Healthcare providers prescribe medications at the right dose and frequency, we’re learning to do the same with physical activity,” Diaz, who was not involved in this research, explained. “This research helps us better define what a Healthful dose of exercise looks like for different people and lifestyles.”
“It’s important to emphasize that this study found no difference in mortality risk between those who exercised only on the weekend and those who spread their physical activity across the week. In other words, neither pattern is better than the other. They’re equally beneficial. So if you’re already fitting in regular activity during the week, there’s no need to switch to a weekend-only routine.”
– Keith Diaz, PhD
“The key takeaway is that exercise can be flexible, and that’s good news for people who find it hard to be active during the workweek due to time pressures,” Diaz added. “You can absolutely make up for it on the weekend.”
MNT had the opportunity to speak with Christopher Berg, MD, a board-certified cardiologist at MemorialCare Heart and Vascular Institute at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, about this study.
“As a cardiologist, I find these results promising and exciting,” Berg, who was not involved in this research, commented.
“I’ve long seen patients who struggle to fit regular exercise into their busy schedules, often resorting to the ‘weekend warrior’ approach — cramming the majority of their physical activity into one or two days each week,“ he told us. “The findings that this pattern can offer similar mortality benefits to more evenly distributed exercise, particularly for cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality, were encouraging.“
“It suggests that patients have more flexibility in how they can get their physical activity, which is a relief for those with time constraints,” Berg further noted.
“However,“ he pointed out, “I am also somewhat cautious whether this approach suits everyone, especially those with underlying heart conditions [who were omitted from the study], where sudden intense activity could pose risks if not properly managed.”
“I would not recommend an inactive person to suddenly start a ‘weekend warrior’ regimen, due to risk of injury and potential difficulties if the person is significantly de-conditioned, but rather start slow and gradually build up to the recommended amount of exercise,” Berg advised.
“Overall, these results are a promising step, but I’d want to ensure we guide patients safely based on their individual health profiles,” he added.
While some may be happy to know that getting all of their weekly exercise on the weekend provides health benefits, getting at least 150 minutes of physical activity in one weekend can be a lot for some people.
How can a person figure out what’s the best time for them to work out during the week, whether that be throughout the week or just on the weekends?
Bert Mandelbaum, MD, a sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon and co-director of the Regenerative Orthobiologic Center at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics in Los Angeles, advised readers to remember that while just exercising two days a week offers a positive effect in this study, exercising for just 2 days a week may not be all a person needs.
“It may be that if you’re 60 pounds overweight and your hemoglobin A1C is 10, that may not be enough for you,” Mandelbaum explained to MNT. “When we exercise and we do a study like this, it shows a positive effect — great. But is it going to be a positive enough effect on you? And I think it has to be customized and it must be specific to the population, to someone that’s 25, is someone 45, or are they 85.”
“I think the conclusions are good, in the lineage of exercising, improving longevity, lifespan, play span, is great,” he continued. “But I raise the question, do not look at this [thinking] that it is the right dose for you. It’s so important that people exercise more than two days a week. It’s like saying if you brush your teeth once a day, that the cavities probably are better, but if you brush it three times a day, the cavities are much improved.”
“We’re athletes — that’s the bottom line,” Mandelbaum added. “When you go back to Darwinian survival of the fittest, we exercise like we’re positively reinforced to hunt. It’s in our DNA, it’s our heritage. So I think that’s one of the things that we [have] to be careful here [is] that someone who wants to be the minimalist takes a conclusion all I gotta do is two days a week — maybe not.”
