Weekend Workouts Are Enough to Cut Diabetes Risk, Study Says

You do not need to exercise every day to stay healthy. An interesting study reveals that weekend warriors can still reap major health benefits, including a lower risk of diabetes.

The Journal of Korean Medical Science (JKMS) published a nationwide study analyzing the relationship between physical activity and type 2 diabetes in 2.4 million Koreans from 2009 to 2022. The findings suggest that meeting your weekly exercise goals—whether you spread your workouts across the week or concentrate them into the weekends—can effectively reduce diabetes risk.

Researchers from Kyung Hee University Medical Center’s Digital Health Center examined data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s Community Health Survey, analyzing 2,428,448 adults to uncover the link between physical activity and diabetes.

Participants who followed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) exercise recommendations—75 to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or more than 75 minutes of high-intensity exercise per week—lowered their diabetes risk by about 16 percent compared to inactive individuals. The ideal approach combined both moderate and high-intensity workouts within these guidelines.

While reaching this exercise threshold is important, adding extra hours at the gym did not lead to additional health benefits.

As long as you meet your weekly exercise goals, how often you work out does not matter much.

Surprisingly, weekend warriors who concentrated their exercise into just a few days saw similar diabetes-fighting benefits as those who exercised throughout the week. It is all about achieving the total recommended activity time.

The researchers concluded that meeting the WHO’s recommended activity levels truly matters, regardless of how you schedule your workouts. Whether you are a daily gym-goer or a weekend warrior, you are making progress toward lowering your diabetes risk.

This study supports recent international findings and offers encouraging news for busy people: it is not about exercising more often but consistently hitting the right amount of physical activity that fits your lifestyle.