Weekend Workout Benefits

1 min

Ideally, everyone should perform moderate to vigorous exercise for 150 to 300 minutes per week. But if you can’t manage to do that during the work week, a new study suggests that a weekend workout or two will do you as much good as more frequent exercise. The researchers from the National Institute on Aging found that one or two weekend workouts were associated with death rates as low as those seen among people who exercise more often. The investigators recruited 3,438 men and women age 40 and older for the study and tracked them for about six years. Those who worked out only one or two days a week were classified as weekend warriors as opposed to regularly active participants who exercised more often. At the end of the study, the researchers found that the weekend warriors had the same low death rates and realized health benefits similar to those who worked out about 50 percent more often. The length of time participants exercised per session wasn’t significantly associated with mortality, the researchers reported.

Source:
Eric J. Shiroma et al, “Physical Activity Patterns and Mortality
The Weekend Warrior and Activity Bouts”, Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise, January 2019, doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001762

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