You don’t have to exercise every day to see health benefits

Finding time to exercise can feel nearly impossible sometimes. Work schedules, school activities and family responsibilities often leave little room for regular workouts. As a result, some people are able to be active only on the weekends. While this may not seem like enough, research suggests that exercising just once or twice a week is still better than not exercising at all.

People whose physical activity fits a “weekend warrior” pattern might lower the risk of an early death from cardiovascular disease, cancer and other causes, according to a 2025 study. The study defined weekend warriors as people who achieved 150 minutes or more a week of moderate to vigorous physical activity in just one or two days.

“You don’t need to exercise every day to stay healthy,” as long as you get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each week, study co-author Dr. Zhi-Hao Li said in a news release. Li is an epidemiologist in the School of Public Health at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China.

“This message is encouraging news for busy people who struggle to fit in daily workouts but can manage a concentrated burst of activity on weekends or over a couple of days,” Li said.

Compared with less active people, the study’s weekend warriors were:

• 32% less likely to die from any cause over a follow-up period of roughly eight years
• 31% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease
• 21% less likely to die from cancer during that time

The results were similar among people who met or exceeded physical activity targets but spread their exercise across three or more days a week.

The findings(link opens in new window) were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

The American Heart Association recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity, or a combination of both.

In the study, nearly 43% of participants were classified as weekend warriors, and almost 24% met the physical activity targets by spreading exercise throughout the week.

The findings build on other research indicating that physical activity doesn’t have to be spread out to be healthy. A study published in the journal Circulation showed that getting 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous exercise reduced people’s risk of developing more than 200 diseases over a six-year period, regardless of whether the activity was spread out or condensed into a day or two.

For their study, Li and colleagues used records for 93,409 people in the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database in the United Kingdom. Participants ranged in age from 37 to 73, with an average age of 62. More than half were women. However, the weekend warriors in the study were more likely to be men, younger and have healthier lifestyles.

Noting that 97% of the participants were white, the researchers wrote that further studies are needed to confirm their results in diverse groups of people.

Participant data included physical activity records collected by wrist accelerometers for seven days in 2013-2015. These devices measure movement and can capture exertion from activities as varied as chores, stationary cycling, running and dancing, all of which could help a person meet the physical activity target.

“Any activity — whether structured exercise such as jogging or daily tasks such as gardening — can be included if the intensity is moderate to vigorous,” Li said.

Yet for weekend warriors, it’s especially important to be careful to avoid injury, said Dr. Keith Diaz, a certified exercise physiologist and a member of the Heart Association’s Physical Activity Science Committee. Diaz, who was not involved in the research, advises warming up before exertion and building up the amount of activity over time.

“Trying to fit 150 minutes of exercise into just one or two days can be a lot on your body,” said Diaz, an associate professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. “Some research suggests that weekend warriors have a slightly higher risk of musculoskeletal injuries compared to those who exercise more regularly. However, the benefits of exercising just on the weekend far outweigh the potential risks.”