Is Exercising Once or Twice Weekly as Beneficial as More-Frequent Exercise?

We don't know whether achieving the weekly recommended level of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in just 1 or 2 days has the same mortality benefit as distributing activity throughout the week. In this prospective cohort study, researchers used data on 351,000 adults (mean age, 41) from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey and the National Death Index to examine activity patterns and mortality. Researchers classified participants as active (i.e., ≥150 minutes/week of moderately vigorous or ≥75 minutes/week of vigorous physical activity) or inactive and also as regularly active (≥3 sessions/week) or “weekend warriors” (1–2 sessions/week) based on self-reported activity from 1997 to 2013.

During a median follow-up of 10 years, 22,00…