Health benefits of being a “Weekend Warrior”

Loosely speaking, a “weekend warrior” is someone who focuses most or all of their weekly physical activity into one or two sessions—typically on Saturday or Sunday—rather than spreading workouts across the week (Figure 1). The key is volume and intensity: these sessions tend to be longer and/or harder to hit guideline totals in fewer bouts, but the pattern (1–2 days vs ≥3 days) is the defining feature.

The obvious upside is practicality—busy people can still meet guidelines by clustering time; that convenience can improve adherence. Potential trade-offs include greater acute fatigue, soreness, and a slightly higher risk of injury due to large, infrequent loads. For many adults, though—including those with chronic conditions—concentrated training is a viable, health-promoting structure when paired with sensible progression, warm-ups, and basic strength work.

So the question is whether there are costs or benefits to being a weekend warrior versus a Steady Eddie exerciser (regular activity). The bottom line is that meeting exercise goals (e.g. the CDC-recommended 150 minutes per week) matters far more than how you distribute the work load.

A new study addressed this question by surveying adults with diabetes from 1997 to 2018. Researchers analyzed data from 51,650 U.S. adults with self-reported diabetes who filled out the National Health Interview Survey. Participants were classified into inactive, insufficiently active, weekend warrior, or regularly active based on self-reported MVPA. MVPA stands for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity—the intensity range associated with meaningful cardiorespiratory and metabolic benefits. Moderate intensity feels like a brisk walk where speaking is possible but singing is hard; vigorous intensity feels like steady running or fast cycling where talking is limited to short phrases. Insufficiently active was defined as MVPA < 150 minutes per week, compared to 0 minutes of MVPA for no activity. The weekend warrior achieves MVPA ≥150 minutes per week in 1 to 2 sessions, whereas the regularly active attain MVPA ≥150 minutes per week in ≥3 sessions).

The subjects were followed for all-cause, CVD (cardiovascular disease), and cancer mortality over a median 9.5 years follow up period. During this time, there were 16,345 deaths (5,620 CVD; 2,883 cancer). Compared to complete inactivity, being active—whether concentrated into 1–2 days or spread across ≥3 days—was associated with lower mortality, especially for CVD:

• All-cause mortality (hazard ratio, HR vs inactive). Insufficiently active 0.90; Weekend warrior 0.79; Regularly active 0.83.
• CVD mortality (HR vs inactive). Insufficiently active 0.98; Weekend warrior 0.67; Regularly active 0.81.
• Cancer mortality (HR vs inactive). Insufficiently active 0.88; Weekend warrior 0.99; Regularly active 0.85.

Thus, reaching ≥150 minutes/week lowers all-cause and CVD mortality regardless of whether the minutes are concentrated or distributed; cancer benefits were smaller and less consistent. In particular, the weekend warrior displayed slightly higher cancer mortality than the insufficiently active, and roughly the same as the completely inactive; this may be due to noisy data. The regularly active had the lowest cancer death rate.

These results were consistent with previous findings. For example, the work of  O’Donovan et al. from 2017 found that weekend warriors and the regularly active had lower all-cause (HR = 0.70), CVD (HR = 0.60), and cancer (HR = 0.82) mortality than completely inactive peers. The protection was roughly the same for weekend warriors and regularly active adults. In a different study, Dos Santos et al. 2022 obtained broadly similar results. Among adults achieving ≥150 minutes/week, weekend warriors were approximately equivalent to the regularly active for all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality after accounting for total MVPA.

Taken together, these research results demonstrate that any exercise pattern that amasses ≥150 minutes/week of MVPA is substantially better for all-cause and CVD mortality than being completely inactive. On the other hand, head-to-head comparisons between the weekend warrior versus the regularly active did not show significant differences across datasets. Insufficiently active, a broad category from greater than 0 to less than 150 minutes per week of MVPA, also showed benefits over complete inactivity.

Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, exercise mortality benefits for cancer were smaller and less consistent than for CVD; numerous other factors play a major role in cancer initiation and progression including weight, diet, alcohol, screening, carcinogen exposure, etc.

Another consideration is that weekend warriors have greater injury risk. Large, infrequent loads can nudge up overuse or acute strain risk in deconditioned folks. This can be mitigated with proper warm-up and gradual load increases.

In summary, if you can get to ~150+ minutes per week of exercise, do it—weekend or weekday. Compared with doing nothing, either pattern (weekend warrior or regular exerciser) clearly improves survival—especially for cardiovascular outcomes. The health benefits of being a Weekend Warrior arise from the amount of MVPA, not how it is distributed. Choose the exercise structure you can sustain safely, and that can become part of your routine.

Figure 1. For those who have a busy work week, concentrating exercise on the weekend (i.e. Weekend Warrior) is one way of achieving exercise goals such as at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per week.