Sedentary behaviour constitutes a risk for lifestyle related diseases and musculoskeletal pain which does not seem to be compensated for by shorter bouts of high intensity physical activity. A way of tackling this may be long term light intensity physical activity while performing office work.

Aim: Establish the effects of low intensity cycling (LC), moderate intensity cycling (MC) and standing at a simulated office workstation on pain modulation, metabolic expenditure and work performance.

Methods: 36 healthy adults (21 females), mean age 26.8 (SD 7.6) years, partook in this randomized 3x3 cross-over trial with 75 minutes of LC on 20% of maximum aerobic power output (MAP), 30 minutes of MC on 50% of MAP and standing 30 minutes with 48 hours wash-out periods. Outcome measures were pain modulation (pressure- and thermal pain thresholds, (PPT and TPT)), work performance (transcription, mouse pointing and cognitive performance) and metabolic expenditure.

Results: PPTs increased in all conditions. Median increase in PPT trapezius was highest after LC; 39.3 kilopascal (kPa) (15.6;78.6) compared to MC; 17.0 kPa (2.8;49.9) and standing; 16.8 kPa (-5.6;39.4), p=0.015. TPT showed no change. Work performance; compared to standing, transcription was reduced during LC and MC, mouse pointing was faster in LC but had more errors while slower with more errors in MC. Performance in the cognitive task did not differ between conditions. Metabolic expenditure rates differed between all conditions (p<0.001) and were 1.4 (1.3;1.7), 3.3 (2.3;3.7) and 7.5 (5.8;8.7) kilocalories per minute during standing, LC and MC, respectively.

Conclusions: LC seem to be the preferred option since it raised PPTs, more than doubled metabolic expenditure, while minimally influencing work performance when compared to standing. Thus, LC is promising but requires corroboration in field studies.