Weekend warrior workouts just as effective as regular weekly exercise

It happens to the best of us: a week goes by and you haven’t found time to get to the gym. Is there any point in making it up on the weekend? 

A University of Calgary kinesiology researcher offers a resounding — yes! 

A proof-of-concept study recently dug into how physical activity impacts and benefits your health. 

“Over the course of our study, we saw no drop off in the fitness benefits from only working out two days a week versus four,” says Dr. Martin MacInnis, PhD, an associate professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology. 

“The key is the intensity and volume have to remain the same.”

Exercise frequency studied

In the study, 28 adults (14 men and 14 women), ranging from sedentary to recreationally active, were randomly assigned to perform eight weeks of supervised training, either high frequency over four days throughout the week, or longer sessions over two days on the weekend only. 

The exercise consisted of continuous and interval training on a stationary bike, with intensity and volume matched between the groups. 

“One of the barriers people often say they face to doing regular activity is a lack of time, but doing something is better than nothing,” says MacInnis. 

“If you’re booked Monday to Friday and think what’s the point in trying to make it up on the weekend, pick a day and do what you can. It’s way better than doing nothing.”

MacInnis and his team, led by Thomas Tripp, a PhD student who is now a postdoc at Queen’s University, recently published the results of the study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports.

Researchers keep FITT

Kinesiology researchers looking into physiology and fitness impact on health make use of the FITT principle (Frequency, Intensity, Time and Type). While some research has been done on the benefits and impacts of exercise intensity, and some examined time (duration) and type of exercise, very little first-hand research has been done on frequency.

“Most of what is available involves people filling out questionnaires on their fitness routines or wearing a movement tracker for a week, and then, many years later, they’ll try to corelate that snapshot of their physical activity with their chance of developing a disease or dying,” says MacInnis. 

“But who knows if they kept up the routine? Anything could’ve changed during that long period of time. In this study, we were more interested in the role exercise frequency plays when trying to improve fitness.”

In addition to showing that both groups increased their cardiorespiratory fitness, the researchers also demonstrated similar increases in blood volume, skeletal muscle mitochondria content, fatigue resistance and exercise performance. 

Future studies will need to determine whether training with a reduced frequency is effective in populations with clinical conditions.