weekend warrior

English

From weekend +‎ warrior. First attested 1956.

weekend warrior (plural weekend warriors)

A part-time soldier, or reservist
Such was the pace with which I, and many like me, the so called ‘weekend warriors’ or Territorial Army, were hoisted aboard the Gulf War battle wagon.
- 1956, US Senate Subcommittee on Real Estate and Military Construction, Military Public Works Construction, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 290:
  At Anacostia, the training that is done to naval aviators who are in the Reserve Services, weekend warrior(s) as it were, and they come to Anacostia to get their refresher training.
(humorous) A person who indulges in a sport or pastime on an infrequent basis, usually on weekends when work commitments are not present.
Synonyms: amateur, dabbler

Antonym: lifestyler

The most common foot-related injury I see for the weekend warrior is heel pain.
- 2018, Tim Winton, The Shepherd's Hut, Picador UK Paperback edition 2018, p. 95:
  Whoever camped here was no weekend warrior neither because round the tanks I saw old kero tins with veggies growing in them.
- 2024 September 26, Ian Sample, “‘Weekend warrior’ workouts may be as effective as daily exercise, study shows”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:
  A study of nearly 90,000 people enrolled in the UK Biobank project found that “weekend warriors” who fit a week’s worth of exercise into one or two days had a lower risk of developing more than 200 diseases compared with inactive people.