Exercise Benefits Heart Health, Even If Only On Weekends

It doesn't matter if you train every day or train all weekend. A new study has found that the recommended 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous physical activity is good for your heart.

Both regimens protect you from atrial fibrillation (AF), heart attack, heart failure and stroke compared with doing nothing, researchers reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Our study shows that activity volume, not pattern, is most important for heart health," said lead researcher Dr. Shaan Khurshid, a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Efforts to increase physical activity, whether evenly distributed or concentrated on one or two days per week, produce similar protective effects on various cardiovascular outcomes and overall cardiovascular health, he said.

"I think these findings should be encouraging because they go against the idea that some people might think that if they can only exercise once or twice a week, they shouldn't do it at all or expect to benefit from it," Khurshid said.

That's good news for legions of so-called weekend warriors. In this study of nearly 90,000 British adults, half of the active people completed most of their exercise within one or two days.

This study highlights the flexibility that physical activity can stack to achieve health benefits, said Peter Katzmarczyk, associate executive director for population sciences and public health at the Pennington Center for Biomedical Research in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

In general, any practice is better than none, says Katzmarzik, co-author of the journal's editorial.

"Every minute counts," he said, adding that no one should give up because they don't follow the rules.

"Over the past two decades, the public health and medical community has focused on promoting 150 minutes or more of moderate-intensity physical activity per week," says Katzmarzik. While this is an excellent goal, the 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines emphasize that many health benefits can be seen at an activity level of less than 150 minutes per week. "More recent studies also show these results," he added.

Doctors should work with their patients to develop physical activity goals that are appropriate for their age and health status, even if they don't reach their weekly goal of 150 minutes, Katzmarzik advises. "Increasing physical activity below the target range confers many health benefits, including a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death," he said.

For the study, Khurshid and colleagues collected data from nearly 90,000 men and women, with an average age of 62, who took part in a UK Biobank study between June 2013 and December 2015.

The researchers studied three groups: people who exercised regularly at moderate to vigorous activity for 150 minutes a week; people who do so much exercise in a day or two; and inactive people. Everyone wore fitness bands around their wrists during the week.

"When we compared regularly active and active weekend warriors, we observed very similar reductions in four main outcomes, namely heart attack, stroke, atrial fibrillation and heart failure, indicating that the two activity regimens were associated with similar protective effects for these outcomes," said Khurshid.

Over about six years, the risk of heart attack decreased by 27% for those who spent the weekend on weekends and about 35% for those who divided their active hours more evenly. Both groups found that the risk of atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm, decreased by about 20% and the chance of heart failure decreased by about 27%. Inactive people did not see this benefit. Similar results were obtained in a study of a group of people who exercised an average of 230 minutes per week.

Further information

To learn more about the importance of physical activity, visit the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Copyright © 2023 Health Day. All rights reserved.

Exercise that prolongs life