In a recent study it has been found that those who exercise in one or twice a week known as the weekend warriors have the equal improvement in the brain as the people who exercise continuously all week. This proves not in line with the view held that stressing ourselves through regular exercise daily is appropriate for good health of the brain and a relief to people with tight schedules.

Research done by a group of neuroscientists and exercise physiologists analyzed the efficacy of the cognitive functioning of 1026 primarily middle-aged adults, between the age of 45 and 75 years in the following five years.

Participants were divided into three groups: Those considered as exercising on the week, non-exercising week-end exercisers who involved in the exercise regimen for the total amount of exercise period proposed but in less number of sessions and the non-exercising control group.

Rather counterintuitively, this research discovered that the subjects in the current exercisers and the weekend warriors had similar enhancement in cognition’s test compared to the non-exercising control participants. These advantages was enhancement of memory, faster cognitive speed and enhanced control functions – very important in executive functioning, which involves the ability to plan, make decisions and even time-share.

In this study, the researchers employed selected neuropsychological tests as the means of evaluating the mental status of participants at the baseline point, and thereafter over a certain time period. They also tracked the physical activity level with the help of the wearable device and exercise diary.

This approach made it easy to determine the correlation between exercise patterns and cognition because of the specificity with which the study was done. One of the known facts, which was established during the conducted research, was that the overall amount of exercising seemed to be of greater importance as compared to the frequency of specific sessions.

For those who performed vigorous activities including running, cycling or high intensity training for many hours on their active days, the results revealed improvements in cognitive function to those who did moderate activities during the week.
Therefore, the finding of this study has great significant for health promotion guidelines and personal exercise prescriptions.

This implies that those who cannot spare time to exercise each day because of work or family, may probably be able to get major cognitive gains from a briefer and intense exercise regimen.

But the authors also point out that while cognitive fitness perhaps loads in a similar fashion, there may still be other aspects of your health like cardiovascular fitness and metabolic fitness, that might load more heavily with regular consistent exercise. They stress that perhaps the proper course of exercise may differ depending upon the individual’s weight loss and health objectives and conditions.

As for the cognitive effects of exercise, the study also examined possible underlying processes which could mediate those effects. Improvements in BDNF, a protein which is essential for neurons growth and survival, was observed in both the groups that exercised and in the weekend warriors.

Interestingly, this implies that even when one is able to use a treadmill for only thirty minutes every now and then, important neurobiological changes that are crucial in matters to do with the brain are set off.

As such, the researchers called on people to embrace safety when engaging in SAPs while noting that their findings are positive news for the ‘weekend warriors. ’ Before any exercise it is very important to warm-up, cool down and gradually build up the intensity especially for the sedentary individuals to reduce cases of injuries.

For this reason, it is important to determine how exercise routine influences or is changed to accommodate aging, cognitive decline, and increasing population of people.

The findings of this research can be considered as informative that can be applied for creating new recommendations concerning physical activity that would be more realistic and feasible for implementation as well as make more people adhere to exercise guidelines within various population groups.