The weekend warrior’s guide to getting fit

Life is busy. Between work, family, and everything else, training every day is a luxury few people have. If your exercise comes in a couple of longer workouts on the weekend, you might assume you’re missing out. You’re not.

Two large studies, one of over 63,000 adults in England and Scotland and one of nearly 90,000 UK Biobank participants wearing accelerometers, found that fitting a week’s activity into one or two workouts lowered the risk of death and heart disease about as much as spreading the same activity over seven days. What counts is the weekly total of moderate and vigorous effort. The catch is that the effort has to be real: an easy stroll does not raise your heart rate enough to change your fitness. So measure intensity rather than time or steps, push into your higher zones on the days you do train, and aim for a weekly target rather than a daily one.

Two workouts can be enough

The term “weekend warrior” comes from a 2017 study in JAMA Internal Medicine, “Association of ‘Weekend Warrior’ and Other Leisure Time Physical Activity Patterns With Risks for Death From All Causes, Cardiovascular Disease, and Cancer,” which followed over 63,000 adults across England and Scotland and found that people who packed their recommended weekly activity into one or two workouts had a similarly lower risk of death from any cause, cardiovascular disease, and cancer as people who spread the same total activity across the whole week.1 A larger 2023 follow-up in JAMA, “Accelerometer-Derived ‘Weekend Warrior’ Physical Activity and Incident Cardiovascular Disease,” used accelerometer data from nearly 90,000 UK Biobank participants and found the same pattern held for heart conditions specifically, atrial fibrillation, heart attack, heart failure, and stroke risk all dropped by a comparable amount whether activity was concentrated on the weekend or spread out.2 What matters most is the total amount of moderate-to-vigorous activity you do, not how evenly you spread it.

That’s good news. It’s exactly how ZonePoints works. You have a weekly zone points target, and you have until Sunday to reach it. Miss a day? Catch up later in the week. It’s the weekly total that counts.

But the effort has to be real

There’s a catch. “Getting your steps in” on an easy stroll won’t do it. The health benefits weekend warriors get come from raising their heart rate into the moderate and vigorous zones. That’s where your heart adapts, your blood vessels widen, and your cells build more of the mitochondria that power endurance.

This is why you measure effort instead of time or distance. A slow walk and a hard interval workout might take the same time, but they are not the same training. Zone points reward the intensity that changes your fitness.

How to make your weekend count

• Go by feel and heart rate, not the clock. Two focused workouts that push into your higher zones beat five half-hearted ones.
• Mix it up. A hard bike ride, a rowing workout, a hilly hike, and a HIIT class all earn points if they demand the same cardiovascular work. Cross-training also protects you from overuse injuries.
• Warm up and cool down. ZonePoints only scores real training time, so you don’t need to worry about padding your workout. Just start moving.
• Aim for your weekly target, not a daily one. Consistency week to week builds lasting fitness.

The takeaway

You don’t need to train every day to be fit. You need to make the training you do actually count. Measure your effort and hit your weekly target, even if that means making up most of it in one big weekend.

Want to know how many points to aim for? Read how many zone points is enough.