May 28, 2025
Weekend warrior workouts just as effective as regular weekly exercise
It happens to the best of us: a week goes by and you haven鈥檛 found time to get to the gym. Is there any point in making it up on the weekend?
A 荔枝视频 kinesiology researcher offers a resounding 鈥 yes!
A proof-of-concept study recently dug into how physical activity impacts and benefits your health.
鈥淥ver the course of our study, we saw no drop off in the fitness benefits from only working out two days a week versus four,鈥 says Dr. Martin MacInnis, PhD, an associate professor in the .
鈥淭he key is the intensity and volume have to remain the same.鈥
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.
鈥淥ne of the barriers people often say they face to doing regular activity is a lack of time, but doing something is better than nothing,鈥 says MacInnis.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e booked Monday to Friday and think what鈥檚 the point in trying to make it up on the weekend, pick a day and do what you can. It鈥檚 way better than doing nothing.鈥
MacInnis and his team, led by Thomas Tripp, a PhD student who is now a postdoc at Queen鈥檚 University, recently published the results of the study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports.
Martin MacInnis' study focused on the role of frequency in fitness training.
Riley Brandt, 荔枝视频
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.
鈥淢ost 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鈥檒l try to corelate that snapshot of their physical activity with their chance of developing a disease or dying,鈥 says MacInnis.
鈥淏ut who knows if they kept up the routine? Anything could鈥檝e 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.鈥
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.
The Faculty of Kinesiology is one of the top sport-science schools in the world and is improving health and mobility for all ages, from recreation participants to elite athletes and Olympians, as well as those with disability and disease. The new will be coming soon to campus. This will expand the space for research and learning in human performance, movement and sport science.