If you’re like many Americans, it can be very difficult to find time to get to the gym during the week. Between work, school, running errands, picking up the kids from practice, laundry, walking the dog and making dinner, it can be nearly impossible to carve out an hour to get to the gym and get your workout in. However new research revealed that the weekend warrior method has numerous health benefits as well.
Weekend Warrior Study
For their study, researchers classified weekend warriors as individuals who cram a week’s worth of workouts into a two-day timeframe on the weekend. Ideally a person will be able to get 30 minutes of exercise in each day, but this study sought to uncover the benefits of getting the bulk of your weekly workout in during a one- or two-day period. In order to meet the definition of a weekend warrior, participants were asked to engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity over the course of one or two days.
Not surprisingly, researchers uncovered that weekend warriors who met the physical activity guidelines were less likely to die during the nine-year study period compared to individuals who didn’t get any exercise. In fact, even weekend warriors who failed to reach the 150-minute or 75-minute goals still had a lower risk of death than individuals who didn’t exercise.
“The present study suggests that less frequent bouts of activity, which might be more easily fit into a busy lifestyle, offer considerable health benefits,” researchers wrote. “A particularly encouraging finding was that a physical activity frequency as low as one or two sessions per week was associated with lower mortality risks.”
Decreases Death Risk
The study, which involved more than 63,000 individuals over the age of 40, revealed that weekend warriors were about 30 percent less likely to die from any ailment compared to individuals who didn’t exercise. Moreover, they were 40 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 20 percent less likely to die from cancer compared to those who didn’t exercise.
The findings are interesting, but certainly not earth-shattering. Obviously you’d expect that individuals who exercise, even if it’s only one or two days a week, to have better health outcomes than individuals who didn’t exercise. The study would be much more illuminating if they compared the weekend warrior style to a traditional, 30 minutes five times a week exercise method to see if there were any conclusions to be drawn. However, the biggest takeaway from the study should be that there are still significant health benefits from cramming your workout into the weekend compared to ignoring it altogether.