If exercise tends to take a back seat during the week, don’t worry: research shows that cramming recommended amounts of activity onto the weekend can have significant health benefits.
A study of almost 90,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank project found that “weekend warriors” who fit in a week’s worth of exercise into one or two days had a lower risk of developing more than 200 diseases compared with sedentary people.
Scientists monitored people’s exercise patterns and then followed their health for years, finding reduced risk across the full range of human diseases, from high blood pressure and diabetes to mood disorders and kidney disease.
The more intense exercise preferred by weekend exercisers appears to be just as effective at reducing the risk of future disease as regular exercise spread evenly throughout the week, leading the researchers to suspect that the total amount of exercise is more important than how often people exercise.
“I think this is empowering,” said Dr. Shaan Khurshid, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who led the study. “What this shows is that in terms of health benefits, it’s not the pattern of physical activity that matters, but the amount. The key is doing it in a way that works for you, regardless of how you get that amount.”
The NHS recommends 150 minutes of moderate exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, per week to stay healthy. Even once or twice a week reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke. As a rule of thumb, the boundary between moderate and vigorous exercise is the point at which it becomes difficult to complete a conversation while exercising.
Writing in the journal Circulation, the researchers describe how they analysed the health records of 89,573 UK Biobank volunteers who wore devices on their wrists and had their movement patterns measured over a week as part of the project.
Those who engaged in at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise were classified as regular exercisers if their exercise was dispersed, or as weekend exercisers if most of their exercise was concentrated on one or two days. Those who exercised less than 150 minutes per week were classified as inactive.
After several years of wearing the activity monitors, weekend exercisers had a lower risk of 264 diseases compared with people considered sedentary. Those who exercised regularly saw similar benefits.
The biggest benefits were seen in cardiometabolic disorders: compared with sedentary people, weekend and regular exercisers had a more than 20% lower risk of hypertension and a more than 40% lower risk of diabetes.
Previous studies have reported similar findings. In 2017, Gary O’Donovan, then a physical activity researcher at Loughborough University, found that weekend sports enthusiasts and people who exercised regularly who met their physical activity goals were less likely to die from cancer or cardiovascular disease than sedentary people. Another 2022 study showed a similar effect.
“The question that plagues such observational studies is whether exercise really prevents disease, or whether healthy people who are at low risk for disease to begin with are simply exercising more. It’s likely that both are at work. In the latest study, the researchers tried to address this question by excluding people whose condition worsened within two years of exercise monitoring.”
Khurshid said further research was needed to explore whether intensive exercise could help people achieve their physical activity goals more easily. “It may be more convenient for some people and it may increase compliance with public health interventions,” he said.
“These findings confirm that the total amount is what matters most, regardless of the weekly frequency,” said Dr. Leandro Rezende, a preventive medicine expert at the Federal University of São Paulo, who led a 2022 study on health and exercise.
“This is good news for people who are striving to reach the World Health Organisation guidelines but only have time a few days a week. However, for people who are already reaching the guidelines, it’s important to consider that increasing the frequency can increase your total amount of physical activity and potentially reap additional health benefits.”
