Scientists Say Amount and Not Frequency of Exercise That Matters

Exercising once a week has equal benefits as daily workouts as long as you exercise for 150 minutes a week.

Now you do not have to feel so guilty because you can’t exercise as often as you wished. Here’s good news!

The experts have discovered that it is not the frequency but the total amount of exercise that actually matters in your pursuits to stay fit.

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Canadian scientists have found that people who exercised for about 150 minutes in a week were as healthy as those adults who did workout more frequently during the week.

Dr. Janssen and Janine Clarke at the Queen’s University, Toronto, studied 2,324 men and women in the age group of 18 to 64 years. They assessed whether the frequency of physical activity is associated with the causative factors for heart ailments, diabetes and stroke.

Motion detectors or accelerometers were attached to the volunteers. The small electrical accelerometer of the size of a small packet of matches can record ‘how much a person moves every minute’.

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The researchers categorized the volunteers who exercised for more than 150 minutes per week into two groups-those who exercised actively (did workout for five to seven days a week) and those who were infrequently active (did workout for one to four days a week).

They found that volunteers in low frequency group were as healthy as those in the high frequency group.

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Dr Ian Janssen, the lead researcher mentioned, “The findings indicate it does not matter how adults choose to accumulate their 150 weekly minutes of physical activity.”

So, it is more of how much a person exercised rather than how often that counts if you want to remain healthy and fit.

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Dr. Janssen further said, “For instance, someone who did not perform any physical activity on Monday to Friday but was active for 150 minutes over the week-end would obtain the same health benefits from their activity as someone who accumulated 150 minutes of activity over the week by doing 20-25 minutes of activity on a daily basis.”

Janssen concluded, “The important message is that adults should aim to accumulate at least 150 minutes of weekly physical activity in whatever pattern that works for their schedule.”

The Canadian study was published in the Journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism.

Source-Medindia