Don’t have enough time to workout during the week?
Researchers have discovered you’ll reap the health benefits from exercise if you save the gym for the weekend.
Data collected from fitness trackers worn by more than 89,000 people showed those who reserved their NHS-recommended 150 weekly active minutes for the weekend cut their risk of 264 diseases.
Experts in the US found so-called ‘weekend warriors’ were up to 43 per cent less likely to be diagnosed with diabetes and 23 per cent less likely to develop high blood pressure, compared to inactive people.
The findings suggest it may be the total volume of activity, rather than the pattern that matters most, according to Dr Shaan Khurshid, researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-author of the study.
US researchers tracked data from 89,000 fitness trackers to acertain the wearers’ risk of developing hundreds of diseases over the next six years.
For the study, a team at the Massachusetts General Hospital analysed physical activity information on 89,573 people from the UK who wore fitness trackers for a week.
Participants’ physical activity patterns were categorised as weekend warrior, regular, or inactive, using the NHS guideline of 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.
The team then looked for links between exercise patterns and incidence of 678 conditions across 16 types of diseases, including mental health, digestive, and cardiovascular, over a six-year span.
A third of the participants were classified as inactive, meaning they did less than 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week.
A quarter were regularly active, meaning they did at least the same amount of similar intensity exercise spread out over a week.
The remainder, 42 per cent, were ‘weekend warriors’, saving their workouts for the weekend.
Results showed that both activity patterns were linked to a significant reduction of life-threatening diseases.
Exercising at the weekend can cut the risk of 264 diseases, compared to not exercising at all, researchers found.
Compared to the inactive group, people who exercised during the week were 35 per cent less likely to have a heart attack over the following six years, compared to 27 per cent for ‘weekend warriors’.
What’s more, ‘weekend warriors’ saw lower risks of heart failure, stroke and deadly irregular heart rhythms compared to regular active people.
People who worked out at the weekend were 38 per cent likely to suffer heart failure, compared to 36 per cent for regularly active people.
For stroke, it was 21 per cent reduced risk versus 17 per cent.
However, previous studies have found that packing enough exercise in at the weekend is a challenge.
According to 2017 report by the American Cancer Society, those on lower incomes don’t manage to meet the expert-recommended 150 minutes at the weekend, as their workout-of-choice isn’t intensive enough.
The researchers found that the only weekend warriors who meet their week’s exercise needs are wealthy — perhaps because they can cover the eye-watering costs of highly intense workout programs like CrossFit.