It may be hard to find time to regularly exercise during the week, but for those who are health conscious there is good news from a recent study from the JAMA Internal Medicine journal. This study has found that working out moderately on the weekends can improve your health as much as sticking to a daily workout program, as long as you’re getting a good amount of exercise.
The study followed more than 350,000 Americans for over a decade and concluded that between 75 and 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise on weekends is advised for 18 to 64-year-olds to maintain optimal health. This amount of exercise could lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other diseases like cancer as significantly as working out throughout the week.
“We found they had similar all-cause and cause-specific mortality, suggesting when performing the same amount of physical activity, spreading it over more days or concentrating it into fewer days may not influence outcomes,” wrote Professor Yafeng Wang of Jiangnan University, who was an author of the study.
“The findings underscore that regular physical activity has been associated with lower risks of all-cause and cause-specific mortality compared with physical inactivity. Most importantly, these findings suggest that whether the recommended amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity is spread out during the week or concentrated into fewer days, there may be no significant difference in health benefits,” continued Wang.