Doing all your exercise in one go at the weekend or spreading it out over the week makes no difference in terms of health benefits, research suggests.
A study found no difference in the death rate of ‘weekend warriors’ and people who are regularly active.
That was so long as they got 150 minutes of moderate exercise each week, such as a brisk walk, swim or cycle, or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity.
It indicates the cumulative amount of active minutes is more important than when the exercise actually takes place.
Researchers said the findings are important for people with fewer opportunities for daily or regular physical activity during their working week.
A Chinese-led team of experts looked at 350,978 adults, who had an average age of 41.
Participants were surveyed about their physical activity levels between 1997 and 2013.
They were then divided by if they did 150 minutes of exercise a week in one-to-two days, three or more days, or didn’t do this amount of exercise at all.
The researchers then tracked how many participants died in the next decade.
At the end of study, 21,898 of the participants had died — 6,035 from cardiovascular events like heart failure, and 4,130 from cancer.
Weekend warriors
Weekend warriors were found to have an eight percent less chance of dying compared to people who didn’t complete 150 minutes per exercise. People who spread their exercise out across the week were 15 percent less likely to die compared to the inactive.
However, the researchers said no significant differences in mortality were found between weekend warriors and regular exercisers when total time spent exercising was considered.
The team’s findings have been published in the Jama Internal Medicine journal.
Joanne Whitmore, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: ‘This large study suggests that, when it comes to exercise, it doesn’t matter when you do it.
‘The most important thing is that physical activity is undertaken in the first place.
‘Whether you cram your exercise in on the weekend or spread it across the week, aim for 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity each week.
‘Exercise can improve your health, reducing your risk of heart and circulatory diseases like heart attack and stroke.
‘Moderate intensity activities make you breathe harder and make your heartbeat faster than usual, but you should still be able to have a conversation whilst doing them.
‘Types of activities can include brisk walking, cycling or swimming, and these activities can be broken up into shorter bursts through the day to make exercise more manageable.’
One limitation of the study, which the authors acknowledged, was that the data on exercise levels was collected via questionnaire.
It means people could have potentially misreported their levels of physical activity.
Daily Mail