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Working out on the weekend can offer similar benefits to regular physical activity during the week.
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In fact, a study of more than 75,000 people showed positive effects on the heart and brain.
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The important thing is to accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate-vigorous physical activity per week.
Let’s face it: not everyone has the opportunity to exercise consistently and consistently during the week. There are too many commitments and contingencies, and physical activity is one of the first to be sacrificed. These people are left with only the weekend to finally get some exercise. Will it be enough? Will it ever be the same as spreading it out over the whole week? There is good news.
Superconcentrate
Concentrating exercise into one or two days can be as effective as a regular weekly routine, especially for heart and brain health, according to the latest research. This is according to a recent study published in Nature Medicine that analyzed the phenomenon of so-called “weekend warriors,” or those who manage to concentrate their weekly physical activity into a few days, usually a couple. The survey involved 75,629 participants from the UK Biobank project, which has more than 200,000 participants, followed for nearly 20 years to study their health in relation to genetic factors. The purpose of the study was to find out whether concentrating workouts still had positive effects on physical and mental health, but not that spreading workouts over the entire week was the same as practicing them only on weekends. In other words, these are two training regimens that have different effects on performance-related fitness but have similar ones in improving cardiovascular and neurological conditions.
The results
The brain health benefits from the workouts of “weekend warriors” are comparable to those obtained by people who exercise consistently throughout the week. Lending credence to this study, in addition to the large number of participants, is the length of the so-called follow-up, that is, the monitoring they underwent: eight years. The results observed are that those who concentrated physical activity on weekends showed a significantly reduced risk of developing dementia, stroke, Parkinson’s, depression and anxiety.
Why is this an important achievement?
The difficulty that many feel in finding time to exercise on weekdays normally leads them to think that moving only two days has little effect. This is why many give up, now challenged. Knowing that concentrating training can still give long-term benefits is a very important finding, especially because it can give these people the motivation to keep working out, even if concentrating the activity in one or two days a week.
And not only
There is also a second study published in Circulation that confirms the first, as it reported similar results. In this case nearly 90,000 people were analyzed, and the outcome confirmed the physical benefit that concentrated workout,ent entails anyway: the risk of developing some 200 diseases, including cardiovascular conditions such as hypertension and diabetes had unequivocally reduced. In short: it doesn’t matter so much how frequently you exercise but how much exercise you accumulate in total.
What about the brain?
How does the brain enter the conversation? Movement, whether distributed throughout the week or concentrated, improves blood flow to the brain, promotes the release of neurotrophic factors, and reduces overall inflammatory status, all of which are critical to brain health. Not only does this mean that mental well-being benefits, it also reduces the risk of developing diseases such as dementia, Parkinson’s, depression, and anxiety. And that’s not all: there’s also an effect that week-long distributed training cannot guarantee: the intense exercise spikes of concentrated workouts can even amplify the production of protective molecules and hormones in the brain. In fact, animal studies have shown that intense but irregular exercise improves cognitive function and mood by increasing antioxidant levels and reducing inflammation.
The famous 150 minutes
150 minutes a week: this is the amount of moderate exercise recommended by the WHO (World Health Organization), 75 if intense. At this point it begs the question, even after discussing previous research: is it better to spread it out or concentrate it? If you can’t work out during the week, don’t be discouraged. Doing it on weeknights can be a viable alternative, especially if your goal is long-term health, particularly brain health. As mentioned earlier, if your goal in the short term is to prepare for a race, this kind of training is unlikely to get you to your peak state of fitness. But if you reason in the very long term, the benefits are still obvious. Provided that on those “concentrated” days you do at least 150 minutes of moderate-vigorous activity each week. How to spread them out? You could do two 75-minute sessions of running or any other physical activity that gets your heart rate up. The important thing is to do it for at least 150 minutes a week, and it’s okay–you’ve probably figured it out by now–even if they’re concentrated into a few days.
The perspective
The purpose of workouts of this kind is to keep the body and brain functioning well in the long run. That’s why it’s important to do them consistently anyway and for a long time (even years) or even a lifetime. Consistency will pay off, it really will. Subtitle Working out on the weekend works: science confirms benefits for heart and brain Brain and cardiovascular health within reach of “weekend warriors” Facebook social launch: “Only working out on the weekend? Good news. “Weekend warriors” get similar benefits to those who work out regularly. Find out why in our new article!” Instagram: “Weekdays too chaotic for training? No problem! Focusing exercise on the weekend can be just as effective. Read how to do it to improve your brain and cardiovascular health.”
(Via Marathon Handbook)