The weekend warrior phenomenon: Beating disease 2 days at a time

I bet you’ve heard of weekend warriors, even if you’re not one yourself.

But after I share something with you known as the “weekend warrior phenomenon” —you may want to join their ranks…

Chances are we all know a weekend warrior. Maybe it’s the sister-in-law who sits behind a desk all week, works late and goes to bed early. But come Saturday morning she packs the car to the hilt and heads out for a weekend of hiking and kayaking…

Or the neighbor you never see step out of the house all week, but who’s at the community park every weekend participating in dawn to dusk pickleball tournaments.

Well, research shows that people like this are onto something that those of us beating ourselves up for not meeting our daily quota of exercise may want to get on board with…

A fast and furious way to stay healthy

According to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, this “weekend warrior” approach to exercise pays big dividends in health bucks.

That may seem counterintuitive to the current Physical Activity Guidelines that advise 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity a week. A weekend warrior only spends two days getting physical. How does that add up?

Researchers decided to find out. With the help of 89,500 participants, they compared the health benefits experienced by people who got their 150 minutes in over a week’s time to those who crammed it all into just two days.

Surprisingly, they found both the “weekend warriors”’ and the “week-long actives” came out on top. Each group experienced substantially lower risks for 264 different diseases over the next six years! The strongest associations were for cardiometabolic conditions.

For example, being a weekend warrior or getting regular activity throughout the week were linked to 23% and 28% lower risks for high blood pressure, respectively, as well as 43% and 46% lower risks of diabetes.

“The bottom line is that it’s really the total volume of physical activity, rather than the pattern, that matters,” said Dr. Shaan Khurshid, the study’s co-senior author and a cardiac electrophysiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. “The important thing is that you get your recommended levels of physical activity. If one to two days a week works for you, you’re still going to get that benefit.”

It’s your choice: the long way or the short way

The thing that matters most about these findings, I believe, is that people can find time to exercise on a schedule that works for them. That way they’re more likely to stick to it.

That solves one reason that so many people give up. The other reason is finding the energy they need.

My answer to that dilemma is a remarkable amino acid called dimethylglycine — or DMG for short. In the 1970s, DMG was a sought-after performance enhancer among athletes.

But thanks to its reputation as an all-natural oxygen and endurance enhancer, scientists realized DMG’s potential for another group of people… those who could certainly use a lot of help with their get-up-and-go: middle-aged men and women everywhere.

DMG is involved in at least 41 different processes in your body and is needed by every single cell. Without DMG, your body can’t create certain hormones (like those related to “desire”), neurotransmitters (that keep brain connections firing) or even DNA (damaged DNA ages us faster).

And thanks to supporting healthy oxygen levels and optimizing oxygen utilization in cells, organs, and tissues — DMG invigorates your entire body! But when paired with a nitric oxide booster like l-arginine — or the hormone balancer Diindolylmethane (DIM for short) — the game goes “next level”…

L-arginine promotes the release of a natural vasodilator called nitric oxide (No). NO promotes normal blood flow, and that matters because, with age, blood flow slows during exercise, leaving you and your muscles starving for oxygen.  

DIM’s role is to balance out estrogen levels in the body. It does this by taking care of invasive endocrine disruptors, “so-called” because they disrupt the hormonal balance that tanks your energy. In addition to energy, DIM supports a healthy weight, sound sleep, firm skin, toned muscles and a healthy sex drive — all the things we need help with in middle age.

For best results, look for a supplement that combines this perfect trifecta of DMG, L-arginine and DIM.

Sources:

‘Weekend warrior’ physical activity may help protect against more than 200 diseases – EurekAlert!

‘Weekend warriors’ may gain same health benefits as people who spread out exercise – American Heart Association