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Extensive weekend exercise may be better than daily training: Study
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Researchers found that in comparison to inactive adults, weekend warriors were at a 30 percent lower risk of dying, with a 40 percent lower risk of cardiovascular death and an 18 percent lower risk of death by cancer. (Shutterstock/File)
T
hose who only get down to exercising on the weekend may rejoice, as a new study has found that they may actually be at an advantage over people who work out on a daily basis, with a lower risk of death.
Known as weekend warriors, these people typically pack all their exercise routines into one or two days of the week. The study, which surveyed 64,000 people and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), compared weekend warriors with people in three other categories: inactive, insufficiently active, and regularly active.
Researchers found that in comparison to inactive adults, weekend warriors reduced their risk of death by about 30 percent, with the odds of a cardiovascular and cancer death being 40 percent and 18 percent lower, respectively.
The study further suggested that, compared to their wholly inactive counterparts, insufficiently active people still benefited from a 31 percent lower risk of death, while regularly active people brought the risk down by 35 percent.
Surprisingly, the insufficiently active, regularly active and weekend exercisers were all at a similar risk of death caused by heart disease or cancer.
University of Sydney associate professor Emmanuel Stamatakis explained, "It is very encouraging news that being physically active on just one or two occasions per week is associated with a lower risk of death, even among people who do some activity but don't quite meet recommended exercise levels.”
Still, he advised people to exercise beyond the common physical activity recommendations for “optimal health benefits”.
The study was somewhat limited in scope, with the health survey conducted only in Britain, relying on self-reporting and being responded to mainly by white men.
In addition to that, 63 percent of the survey respondents were inactive, 22 percent were insufficiently active, 11 percent were regular exercisers and only 3.7 percent were weekend warriors. Hence, the population of each category was not distributed equally, which could flaw the entire analysis.
Despite such shortcomings, the study’s authors still described their findings as "statistically powerful”, saying they supported previous research by Harvard University that had come to similar conclusions.
Health experts currently recommend either 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise — all to lower cholesterol, control weight gain, improve sleep patterns and reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. (mra/kes)
