Are You A “Weekend Warrior”?

First, let’s define the term: for our purposes today (and indeed, for the science we will discuss), a “weekend warrior” is someone who gets in 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous exercise in just one or two sessions per week.

Some more parameters for our discussion today:

• a “regularly active” person also does 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous exercise, but spread over three or more sessions
• an “inactive” person is someone who does under 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per week.

You can probably guess already that the “inactive” person is going to be less healthy, and if you guessed that, then you guessed correctly.

But, what about the other two?

Head to head

Researchers (Dr. Zhiyuan Wu et al.) looked at 51,650 US adults with type 2 diabetes, found that both weekend warrior and regular exercise patterns (per the above definitions) reduced risk of death.

Compared to inactive people…

• weekend warriors had a 21% lower all-cause mortality risk
• regularly active people had a 17% lower all-cause mortality risk

Not only that, but when we look at cardiovascular mortality specifically, the gap widens, and…

• weekend warriors had a 33% lower cardiovascular death risk
• regularly active people had a 19% lower cardiovascular death risk

You can read the paper in full, here: Association of Weekend Warrior and Other Physical Activity Patterns With Mortality Among Adults With Diabetes: A Cohort Study

Why does this happen? What happened to advice such as that from The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less, & Move More?

It’s unclear, but the researchers hypothesize that weekend activities may be longer, more social, outdoors, or higher intensity compared with weekday gym workouts—all of which can make a difference.

We at 10almonds would also not that the limitations listed in the paper,

❝Physical activity was self-reported and assessed at a single time point❞

…may play a part too. The kind of person who spends their weekends mountain-biking may well say “No, I don’t really do any exercise in the rest of the week” because, comparatively to the weekend, they’re not—even if in fact, due in part to their extra fitness, they’re quite possibly moving more than their non-weekend-warrioring counterparts who, not having the weekend of mountain-biking to point to, start totting up all the other things they do during the week, that the weekend warriors also did but left unmentioned as superfluous. But this too is just a hypothesis, to be clear.

What is clear, and is not hypothetical, is that both exercise patterns significantly reduce all-cause mortality.

In short, it is best to go with which ever works for you and your preferred lifestyle, because ultimately, the best exercise is the exercise that you’ll actually do.

For example:

• How Useful Is “Exercise Snacking”, Really? ← for light bites
• How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body) ← for getting intense

Want to learn more?

If you don’t love organized, intentional workouts, then consider:

No-Exercise Exercise! ← for how to get in a lot of exercise without it feeling like it

Enjoy!