Exercise May Offer Health Benefits in ‘Weekend Warriors’

The United States Department of Health and Human Services recommends moderate-intensity exercise for 150 minutes during the week to reduce all-cause mortality. This can be done by walking 30 minutes for five days a week. Weekend warriors are people who do not exercise for even 30 minutes during their week. A recent study found that exercise can increase the benefits among “weekend warriors”.// The research study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine (JAMA IM).

The study suggests that so-called "weekend warriors" have significantly lower all-cause mortality compared with inactive people. For people constrained by a busy weekday schedule, this study provides support for compressing their workout into a day or two, says a commentary that accompanies the study in the same issue. At the same time, there are still many questions remaining about the optimal dose of physical activity in terms of total time, frequency, and intensity, say the authors of the invited commentary Hannah Arem and Loretta DiPietro both from Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) at the George Washington University.

Arem and DiPietro go on to say that people who exercise throughout the week or on a daily basis may be getting additional health benefits, such as countering the negative effects of an otherwise inactive lifestyle. For busy people, they recommend building short stints of physical activity into a daily routine by taking the stairs instead of the elevator or taking short, frequent walks.



Source-Eurekalert