"Do I have to do it every day?" Weekend workouts reduce the risk of 200 diseases.

People who have difficulty making time every day during the week due to work or childcare sometimes squeeze in exercise on the weekends. 

According to a study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, weekend exercise may offer as much potential benefit in reducing the risk of various diseases as a more evenly distributed exercise pattern throughout the week.

 

Generally, adults are recommended to exercise at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise. The researchers wanted to determine whether those who meet this recommendation, splitting their exercise into 20-30 minute sessions several times a week, would experience greater benefits than those who exercised every other day for five or six days.

To this end, the researchers analyzed data from 89,573 participants in the UK Biobank study. They collected information on the participants' total physical activity and the time spent exercising at various intensities over a week via wrist-worn accelerometers. They categorized participants into three groups based on recommended exercise guidelines: weekend-only exercise, regular exercise, and inactive. They then analyzed the association between physical activity patterns and the incidence of 678 diseases across 16 categories.

 

As a result, the weekend exercise group and the regular exercise group were found to have significantly lower risks of over 200 diseases compared to the inactive group. Among them, the strongest associations were observed for cardio-metabolic diseases such as hypertension (23% and 28% lower risk, respectively, in the weekend and regular exercise groups over an average of six years) and diabetes (43% and 46%, respectively).

 

Study author, Massachusetts General Hospital Arrhythmia Center “This study shows that a pattern of exercising intensively on weekends has potential benefits across a range of conditions, from cardiovascular disease to chronic illnesses and mood disorders,” said Dr. Shaan Khurshid.

 

"Given that the benefits of weekend-focused and regular exercise appear similar, it may be the total amount of activity, not the pattern of exercise, that matters most," he said. "Future interventions are needed to test the effectiveness of focused activity for improving public health, and patients should be encouraged to engage in guidelines-compliant physical activity in a pattern that best suits them."

 

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It's perfect for those who are busy on weekdays.

Because I can exercise on the weekends..

 

You said you can't exercise every day,

I guess it's not a bad thing

 

Exercise is better than not exercising at all.

The most important thing is to do it, to be doing it.