To Your Health
July, 2022 (Vol. 16, Issue 07) |
|
|
Weekend Warrior? That's OK
By Editorial Staff
As the name suggests, weekend warriors tend to concentrate their physical activity on the weekend, rather than throughout the week. One might think that's not as health-promoting as activity performed on weekdays and weekends, but research suggests that's not the case. Even weekend warriors can benefit – and to the same extent as throughout-the-week exercisers; particularly when examining perhaps the most important health variable of all: risk of death.
Researchers compared several different patterns of physical activity among more than 350,000 U.S. adults (weekend warrior vs. regularly active leisure-time physical activity) to determine whether one increased the risk of mortality: by any cause, cardiovascular disease or cancer. Members of each group were also subclassified according to frequency, duration and intensity of physical activities performed.
Findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, revealed: "Adults who perform 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity (or 75 minutes of vigorous activity) per week may experience similar health benefits whether the sessions are spread throughout the week or concentrated in a weekend." Specifically, adults participating in either activity pattern had an equal, reduced risk of mortality (all-cause or cause-specific) compared to inactive adults.
In other words, as long as you exercise, it doesn't matter if you do it throughout the week or only on the weekends. The important thing is that you do something ... besides sitting around. Ask your doctor for help designing a physical activity program you can stick with and that takes any health limitations into consideration. It's time to get moving!
