ArticleFrontiers in sports and active living2021
Sitting for Too Long, Moving Too Little: Regular Muscle Contractions Can Reduce Muscle Stiffness During Prolonged Periods of Chair-Sitting.
Article in Frontiers in sports and active living, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Should pre-measurement physical activity be standardized in muscle thickness and stiffness evaluations? - A randomized controlled four arm cross-over study.BMC medical imaging · 2026Trial
- Musculoskeletal Pain and Hip Muscle Length Among Undergraduates: A Longitudinal Study of 1 Year.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Article
- Characteristics of the sleep structure in the cleaner wrasse Labroides dimidiatus.Zoological letters · 2026Article
- Article
- The association between physical activity and adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: improper sitting posture as a mediator.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
- Time course of perceived knee stiffness following prolonged sitting in healthy adults.JSAMS plus · 2025Article
- The Effects of a 24-Week Combined Circuit Training and Mobility Program on the Physical Fitness and Body Composition of an Adult Academic Community.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Exploring the relationship between occupational stress, physical activity and sedentary behavior using the Job-Demand-Control Model.Frontiers in public health · 2024Observational
- Assessing reliability and validity of different stiffness measurement tools on a multi-layered phantom tissue model.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Prevalence and risk factors of work-related musculoskeletal disorders among emerging manufacturing workers in Beijing, China.Frontiers in medicine · 2023Article
- The Effects of Isometric Fatigue on Trunk Muscle Stiffness: Implications for Shear-Wave Elastography Measurements.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Lower-Limb Range of Motion Predicts Sagittal Spinal Misalignments in Children: A Case-Control Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- The sitting vs standing spine.North American Spine Society journal · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In modern Western societies, sedentary behavior has become a growing health concern. There is increasing evidence that prolonged sitting periods can be associated with musculoskeletal disorders. While it is generally recognized that back muscle activity is low during chair-sitting, little is known about the consequences of minor to no muscle activity on muscle stiffness. Muscle stiffness may play an important role in musculoskeletal health. This study investigated the effects of regular muscle contractions on muscle stiffness in a controlled experiment in which participants sat for 4.5 h. Neuromuscular electrical stimulation in the lumbar region of the back was applied to trigger regular muscle contractions. Using stiffness measurements and continuous motion capturing, we found that prolonged sitting periods without regular muscle contractions significantly increased back muscle stiffness. Moreover, we were able to show that regular muscle contractions can prevent those effects. Our results highlight the importance of consistent muscle activity throughout the day and may help explain why prolonged periods of chair-sitting increase the susceptibility to common pathological conditions such as low back pain.
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Registered trials
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