What matters are those exercise minutes, not how you spread them out over the week.
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Often maligned for compressing all of their workouts into one or two days instead of spreading them out over the week, there are more weekend warriors out there than you might think.
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Who knows if the Saturday morning cyclist or runner, the tennis player or pickleball player who returns to his regular team every Sunday or the longtime hockey player who is at the rink a few nights a week waits six or seven days before his next exercise.
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According a study of 3,438 Americans whose activity was monitored by accelerometers for seven days, 32.3% were weekend warriors, whom the researchers defined as performing more than 50% of their weekly physical activity in one or two days (31, 1% spread their activity more evenly over the week and 36.6% were inactive). This means that about one-third of the population “doesn’t exercise most, if not all, days of the week,” as most health experts recommend.
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The World Health Organization recommends that individuals accumulate 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise (75 minutes of vigorous-intensity) per week, preferably spread over five to seven days or 20-30 minutes of exercise per week. day – a prescription has been shown to provide health benefits. But there’s little advice for those who find it easier to squeeze in all of their minutes of exercise in a day or two. Are the health benefits the same as following a more traditional workout regimen? Or, could it be that the accrued benefits from 150 minutes of exercise per week are the same whether you do them all at once or spread them out over the week?
This is a question that several researchers have investigated, with most results suggesting that while the training regimen followed by weekend warriors may differ from traditional exercise guidelines, there is no doubt that one to two workouts a week are health benefits, especially compared to no exercise. at all. A study of more than 60,000 people found that weekend warriors had a 30% lower risk of all-cause mortality, a 41% lower risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality, and a 13% lower risk of cancer. % inferior. mortality compared to sedentary people.
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As to whether weekend warriors can count on the same impressive scale of health benefits as those who accumulate minutes of exercise over several days, most research suggests that the death rates of both groups of users are similar. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine tracking the health and mortality of 350,978 adults who documented their exercise habits over 20 years. Using data provided by study subjects, the research team divided the cohort into two groups – those who accumulated 150 minutes or more of physical activity per week and those who performed less than 150 minutes of physical activity. exercise per week.
They further delineated the active group into those who trained once or twice a week and those who trained more than twice a week. The duration of their workouts (20 minutes or less, 20-30 minutes, 30-60 minutes or more than 60 minutes) and the intensity of their exercises (light, moderate, vigorous) were also taken into consideration.
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It turns out that the weekend warriors had better death rates than those who didn’t exercise and similar to those who exercised more regularly.
“These results suggest that whether the recommended amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity is spread out over the week or concentrated on fewer days, there may be no significant difference in health benefits,” the researchers said. .
This is great news for anyone whose lifestyle makes it easier to schedule and complete fewer workouts. But there is a caveat. All of the results comparing the health benefits of weekend warriors and more regular exercisers noted that exercise volume remained the same between the two groups, even though they differed in exercise frequency.
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What matters are those exercise minutes, not how you spread them out over the week.
A large portion of weekend warriors work in professions that keep them behind a desk. Add those working conditions to family responsibilities and we’re talking about a large portion of the population who might find it easier to schedule fewer exercise sessions, even if they need to be closer to 75 minutes versus 30 minutes. more frequently recommended exercise. one day.
“For people with fewer opportunities for daily or regular physical activity during the work week, these findings are important,” the researchers said in the JAMA article.
It’s time for the exercise guidelines to be amended to include more details regarding exercise frequency, a detail that gives weekend warriors a much-needed status upgrade.
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