Finding time to exercise several days a week can be difficult, but new research suggests that one longer workout per week could still deliver meaningful benefits for people with excess abdominal fat.
A 16-week randomized clinical trial involving 315 adults with central obesity found that completing a single 75-minute interval-walking workout each week reduced waist circumference and body fat while improving cardiorespiratory fitness. Importantly, researchers found broadly comparable benefits when the same weekly exercise volume was divided into three shorter sessions.
One Workout a Week Shows Measurable Benefits
Researchers compared participants assigned to different exercise schedules while keeping their overall weekly exercise volume similar.
One group completed the entire workout in a single 75-minute weekly session, while another spread the activity across three 25-minute sessions per week. The exercise involved interval walking, alternating periods of faster and slower movement.
After 16 weeks, both approaches produced improvements in important health measures.
The once-weekly group experienced reductions in waist circumference, total body fat and visceral fat, while cardiorespiratory fitness also improved. Researchers did not find meaningful differences between the two exercise schedules for several of the main outcomes.
Why the Finding Matters for Busy Adults
Public-health recommendations generally encourage adults to accumulate regular physical activity throughout the week, and this study does not establish that one workout is universally better than exercising more frequently.
Instead, its importance lies in flexibility.
People who struggle to exercise on several different days may still gain measurable benefits by concentrating an achievable amount of activity into a longer weekly session.
That could make structured exercise more accessible for people dealing with busy work schedules, family responsibilities or other barriers to frequent workouts.
Can One Workout Really Reduce Belly Fat?
The findings require an important distinction.
The research does not suggest that a single workout instantly “burns belly fat.” Rather, participants consistently followed their assigned exercise programme for 16 weeks.
Over time, that regular weekly activity was associated with reductions in abdominal and overall fat measures.
This is also different from spot reduction. Exercise cannot reliably force the body to remove fat specifically from the stomach. Changes in waist circumference and visceral fat occur as part of broader changes in body composition and metabolism.
Exercise Benefits Go Beyond Weight Loss
Another important takeaway is that the value of exercise should not be judged solely by kilograms lost.
Improved cardiorespiratory fitness and reduced visceral fat can be meaningful because excess visceral fat—the fat stored around internal organs—is associated with greater cardiometabolic risk.
Regular walking also provides an accessible form of exercise that requires little equipment and can be adjusted according to individual fitness levels.
Should You Exercise Only Once a Week?
Not necessarily. Current physical-activity recommendations generally encourage adults to accumulate around 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week, or an equivalent amount of vigorous activity, alongside muscle-strengthening exercise on at least two days.
The new study instead suggests that exercise scheduling may be more flexible than many people assume.
For someone unable to maintain several workouts each week, consistently completing one structured session may be considerably better than abandoning exercise altogether.
The broader message is encouraging: when it comes to improving fitness and reducing abdominal fat, consistency and total activity may matter more than finding the “perfect” workout schedule.
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