ABSTRACT
At the physiological level, sedentary posture can be linked to low energy expenditure demand or, more directly, to the contractile activity in skeletal muscles important for common activities involving being upright-standing and light ambulation.1,6,7 Importantly, this type of muscular contractile activity that is essential for good health is of much lower intensity and different in many ways from what is associated with exercise programs,1 and it includes most notably the intermittent pattern of light-intensity contractions spread throughout the entire day; these contractions account for the 4-8 h/day of nonexercise physical activity responsible for the abundant yet widely variable (e.g., 300-1500 kcal/day) nonexercise activity thermogenesis when people are not sitting.8-10 This is in contrast to traditional aerobic exercise programs that have focused on adding blocks (≥10 minutes)
of moderate to vigorous exercise, such as brisk walking or bicycling, often with the minimal goal of accumulating a relatively modest duration of approximately 150 min/week.
