2024-09-29 20:03:27
Moving for 30 to 60 minutes every day – many people can’t do that during the week. A new study shows how they can still reap the benefits of exercise.
Exercise can help improve physical and mental health. Obesity, back pain, cardiovascular disease or even cancer can be prevented to a certain extent. That’s why experts like the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend exercising for at least 150 minutes a week – ideally divided into several units of endurance and strength training. The German Nutrition Society (DGE) even recommends getting 30 to 60 minutes of moderate exercise every day.
However, many people don’t get the chance to exercise regularly during the week. However, you don’t have to forego the benefits of exercise – as long as you do it on the weekend: Weekend athletes also have a lower risk of 264 diseases compared to inactive people. This is the result of a current international study. It was published in the specialist journal “Circulation”.
The researchers examined the effect of exercise on 16 categories of diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases, mental illnesses, digestive disorders and neurological diseases.
The strongest effect compared to inactive people was in:
The authors emphasize that there were no diseases in which the effect of regular exercise and weekend exercise differed greatly. As long as you train for the same amount of time, you benefit from both variants. This question was unresolved for a long time.
The subjects in the study exercised at moderate intensity for an average of 230 minutes in both groups. According to the Health Knowledge Foundation, moderate intensity activities include dancing, gymnastics, fast walking or swimming. One characteristic is that at this intensity you can still have a conversation, but you can no longer sing.
Light-intensity activities include walking or carrying objects that are not too heavy – i.e. everything that people do in everyday life. On the other hand, high intensity occurs when the movement is perceived as clearly strenuous and you breathe significantly faster. These include, among other things, fast cycling or swimming as well as jogging.