Exercising Only on the Weekend is Still Effective

The American Heart Association advises 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each, but busy Americans might not have the time to fit it in. The advantages of working out solely on the Weekend are equal to those seen by more frequent exercisers, according to new research involving over 351,000 participants.

Researchers detailed their analysis of data from the National Health Interview Survey, which was conducted from 1997 to 2013, in a paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The term “Weekend warriors” was used by authors to describe those who performed the whole amount of exercise they were advised to do each Weekend in one or two sessions, as opposed to people who spaced out their workouts.

4,130 people died of cardiovascular disease and 6,034 people died of cancer throughout the participants’ median 10.4 years of follow-up. When compared to sedentary participants, Weekend athletes and regular exercisers had similar all-cause mortality hazard ratios. The two active groups’ cause-specific mortality hazard ratios were comparable.

Findings “reinforce the necessity of obtaining the recommended levels of physical exercise for health,” according to the authors. The authors concluded, “These findings are noteworthy for persons with less possibilities for daily or regular physical exercise during the work Weekend. “Along with reducing obesity and weight gain, exercise can help prevent the start of a number of non-communicable illnesses. At the moment, 42 percent of Americans are considered fat, and 9.2 percent are considered seriously obese.