Key points from article :
A new study published using data from the UK Biobank has found that exercising only on the weekends may be just as beneficial for your health as spreading workouts across the week. Researchers led by Zhi-Hao Li at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, studied over 93,000 adults aged 37 to 73, whose physical activity was tracked via wrist accelerometers over a two-year period. Participants were then followed for eight years.
The study found that people who achieved the World Health Organization’s recommended 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per week had significantly lower risks of death, regardless of whether that activity was spread throughout the week or crammed into just one or two days. So-called “weekend warriors” saw a 32% lower risk of death from all causes, a 31% lower risk from cardiovascular disease, and a 21% lower risk from cancer compared to inactive people. Those who exercised more consistently across the week had slightly lower risk reductions, but the difference between the two groups wasn’t statistically significant.
Experts, including I-Min Lee from Harvard Medical School, say the findings highlight that there’s no single "right" way to be physically active — what matters most is meeting the weekly activity goal, however you do it. However, as the study was based largely on white UK participants, researchers say more diverse studies are needed to confirm whether the findings hold true across different populations.
