So much for a lazy Sunday.
“Weekend warriors” – those who cram exercise into their Saturdays and Sundays – could have a lower risk of developing 264 diseases than those who hit the gym during the week, according to a new study.
“We have shown that weekend sports activity has potential benefits not only for cardiovascular disease risk, as we have shown previously, but also for the risk of future diseases ranging from conditions such as chronic kidney disease to mood disorders,” said Dr. Shaan Khurshid, professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-senior study author.
In the study, around 90,000 UK residents wore accelerometers on their wrists to track their physical activity and the time they spent on different intensities of exercise over a week.
Participants were divided into three groups: weekend activists, regular activists, and non-activists.
The research team looked at associations between activity patterns and the onset of 678 disorders across 16 different categories, including mental health, gastrointestinal, neurological and other conditions.
People who play sports on the weekends or go to the gym regularly have a significantly lower risk of contracting over 200 diseases compared to those who do nothing but watch TV.
The strongest associations were for cardiometabolic diseases such as high blood pressure (23% lower risk in weekend exercisers and 28% lower risk in daily exercisers) and diabetes (43% and 46% lower risk, respectively).
The results were published Thursday in the journal Circulation.
“Our findings were consistent across different definitions of weekend activity and other criteria used to classify people as active,” Khurshid said.
He adds: “Weekend exercise and regular exercise appear to have similar benefits, so it may be the total amount of exercise, rather than the pattern, that matters most.”
According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, adults should aim for 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity and two days of strength training per week.
“150 minutes of exercise each week may seem like a lot, but you don’t have to do it all at once,” says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “You could do 30 minutes a day, five days a week. You could also spread your exercise out over the week, breaking it down into shorter periods of time.”
Aerobic exercise has been shown to have a variety of benefits, including lowering the risk of stroke, maintaining a healthy weight, strengthening bones and improving mental health.
