It’s one of the more frustrating aspects of modern life: you know how important regular exercise is, and you want to be the type of person that runs a casual 10k every morning, but fitting in workouts between the days of Monday and Friday is no easy feat.

Between 40-hour working weeks, non-stop Zoom calls, too much life admin and endless commuting, it’s near impossible to find time to lace on your trainers. The result? You end up cramming all your fitness into the weekend in a harried attempt to play catch-up with the sessions you’ve missed.

If this sounds like a familiar scenario, there is reassuring news. A recent study of more than 10,000 people has found that people who exclusively exercise at the weekend may reap the same health benefits from fitness as those who consistently workout.

Participants in the Mexico City Prospective Study were observed over a 16-year period, with researchers finding that people who shoehorned their exercise into Saturday and Sunday had the same reduction in the risk of mild dementia (roughly 25%) as people who work out frequently.

Over the past few years, ‘intermittent weekend exercise’ has gained steam as a fitness concept in its own right, encouraging time-poor people to stack their workouts at the end of the week, rather than taking an ‘all or nothing’ approach where they neglect the gym entirely. Curious to know about its other benefits? We asked fitness professionals to weigh in…

How could intermittent weekend exercise benefit me?

“For people who are just starting out in fitness, two days’ training at the weekend will have a significant impact on both their health and body composition,” says Martin Sharp, a fitness and lifestyle coach and founder of Sharp Fit For Life.

As a pattern of physical activity, intermittent weekend exercise has been a popular topic of research in recent years. A study of nearly 90,000 adults in the UK found people who cram all their workouts at the weekend lowered their risk of developing more than 200 health conditions, from heart disease and mood disorders to kidney issues and obesity.

But it’s not just newbies that might benefit from being a weekend warrior. Many regular gym-goers fall victim to the pitfalls of overtraining, where they exercise too hard without enough time to recover. While it’s admirable to train consistently hard in your chosen discipline, too much of a good thing can actually stall your progress, as it’s during quality rest that muscles repair and grow stronger.

“If you’re already fit and train regularly, then you might actually benefit from the increased rest period during the week, especially if you’re planning to increase your training volume at the weekend,” notes Sharp.

“Plus, there’s the potential to decrease stress during the week by removing gym activities that compete with everything else in a busy schedule,” he adds. Overall, the majority of the scientific literature available suggests that chronic stress both impairs mental efforts to be physically active, as well as outweighs our physical ability to recover well.

So, saving your long runs for a day when your laptop is closed and hidden out of sight might be a smarter strategy for training success.

Who is intermittent weekend exercise useful for?

Boxing coach Rav Gill says that this style of exercise can be particularly useful for people during busy periods, like the relentless Christmas period, when social gatherings and end-of-year deadlines can quickly throw your training schedule out of whack.

“As the festive period lasts only a matter of weeks, it’s often more beneficial to train on the weekend, rather than not at all – not only for your physical health, but for your mental wellbeing too,” says Gill.

When it comes to exercise, he adds that every little helps, and the well-documented benefits of regular physical activity include better brain function, improved mood and a lower risk of health conditions like type 2 diabetes, dementia, heart disease and cancer.

“Even just knowing you have made the effort to roll out your mat and train at home on a Saturday morning will put you in a more positive frame of mind, especially if you feel guilty about struggling to find time in the week,” he notes.

Sharp adds that weekend exercise can be a great tool for people who are new to fitness and looking to build a regular, consistent fitness habit. Literature on habit forming suggests that automatic healthy behaviours like exercise are formed when they are consistently repeated over time, with certain ‘cues’ (such as a well-trodden weekend routine) triggering our brain into action.

“Reading around the studies, it appears this approach to working out could be beneficial for people who are totally new to the gym,” says Sharp. “If you have a busy weekday schedule, you’re more likely to stick to a workout routine in the long-run if it lands on days where you have less tasks competing for your time.”

Gill agrees: “Even if you’re only planning to adopt this strategy for a short period, keeping some form of routine will help immeasurably when things quieten down and you get back into your usual gym schedule.”

How can I practise intermittent weekend exercise?

NHS guidelines generally recommend we aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity. Roughly speaking, that’s two 40-minute sessions spread over the weekend, where you aim to get your heart rate into the red zone – working close to or at your maximal effort.

“If you’re stacking your gym efforts into two heavy workouts at the end of the week, you’ll be looking to build a full programme that includes a dynamic stretch to warm up, followed by a high-octane blast of cardio, like cycling, running or rowing,” says Sharp.

“Added to this, you’ll also want to incorporate some form of resistance training (like weights or calisthenics) that covers all muscle groups to build strength.” A finisher that works your core in isolation can help you to reap the benefits of a strong core, which includes improved posture and better balance, as well as reducing the risk of back pain and injury.

“To cool down,” Sharp adds, “I like to round off a challenging session with a set of static stretches, followed by a few minutes of self-myofascial release to limit the likelihood of painful DOMS come Monday morning.”