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Published on: March 7, 2019
The impact of accelerometer-derived 'weekend warrior' physical activity on musculoskeletal disorders and
Yuanpeng Zhu1,2,3, Di Liu1,2,3, Xiangjie Yin1,2,3
1Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100730, China.
Background:
Whether concentrating moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) into 1-2 days ("weekend warrior", WW) provides musculoskeletal benefits comparable to more evenly distributed weekly activity ("regular activity", RA) remains unclear.
Methods:
In a prospective UK Biobank accelerometer cohort (n = 52,606), participants free of musculoskeletal disease at baseline were classified hierarchically: inactive (<150 min/week MVPA); among those meeting the guideline threshold (≥150 min/week), WW (≥50% of weekly MVPA accrued within the most active 1-2 days) and RA (≥150 min/week but not meeting the WW criterion). Over a median 8.2 years of follow-up, there were 4107 osteoarthritis (OA), 2454 spine degenerative changes (SDCs), and 1006 osteoporosis (OP) events. Cox models estimated incident outcomes; multi-state models estimated transitions among baseline, first musculoskeletal disease, musculoskeletal multimorbidity (MSM), and death.
Results:
Compared with inactivity, both RA and WW were associated with lower risks of OA (RA hazard ratio [HR] 0.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.69-0.83; WW HR 0.83, 0.77-0.89; both p < 0.001), SDCs (RA HR 0.85, 0.76-0.95, p = 0.004; WW HR 0.85, 0.78-0.94, p = 0.001), and OP (RA HR 0.74, 0.62-0.88; WW HR 0.75, 0.65-0.87; both p < 0.001). In multi-state analyses, mortality was lower versus inactivity from baseline for both RA (HR 0.61, 0.55-0.69; p < 0.001) and WW (HR 0.59, 0.54-0.65; p < 0.001), with a stronger reduction after MSM for WW (HR 0.42, 0.25-0.72; p = 0.001) than RA (HR 0.83, 0.48-1.43; p = 0.502).
Conclusion:
Meeting MVPA recommendations via WW may provide comparable musculoskeletal risk reduction to RA.
