Time to elicit physiological and exertional vigorous responses from daily living activities: setting foundations of an empirical definition of VILPA
Date
2025
Authors
Ahmadi, M.N.
Holtermann, A.
Tudor Locke, C.
Koster, A.
Johnson, N.
Chau, J.
Wei, L.
Sabag, A.
Maher, C.
Thøgersen Ntoumani, C.
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Journal article
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Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2025; 56(12):2413-2420
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Abstract
Purpose: Vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) are bursts of incidental vigorous activity that occur during day-to-day activities outside of the exercise-domain. VILPA has shown promise in lowering risk of mortality and chronic disease. However, there is an absence of an empirically derived definition. Using physiological and effort-based metrics commonly used to define vigorous intensity, we investigated the minimum time needed to elicit physiological and perceived exertion responses to standardised activities of daily living.
Methods: Seventy adults (Age = 58.0 ± 9.6y; 35 female) completed 9 VILPA activities of daily living in a randomised order, that included: fast walking, fast incline walking, stair climbing, stationary cycling, and carrying external weight equal to 5% and 10% of body weight. Metabolic rate (by continuous indirect calorimetry), heart rate (telemetry) and perceived effort (Borg Scale) were measured during exercise. Time to reach VILPA was assessed using %VO₂max, %HRmax, and rating of perceived exertion thresholds.
Results: The mean time to elicit VILPA ranged from 65-95 seconds (mean ± sd = 76.7 ± 3.8 seconds) for %VO₂max, 68 to 105 seconds (mean ± sd = 82.8 ± 6.8 seconds) for %HRmax, and 20 to 60 seconds (mean ± sd = 44.6 ± 6.7 seconds) for rating of perceived exertion. For each of the three indices, there was no difference in the time to elicit VILPA responses by sex or age (p > 0.08), and times were also consistent between activities of daily living tasks. For example, for females and males, the average time to elicit vigorous responses while walking on a flat surface was 85.8 (±16.9) and 80 (±13.9) seconds, respectively, and for stair climbing while carrying 10% of body weight the duration was 78.4 (±17.6) and 76.9 (±17.7) seconds.
Conclusions: When participants undertook activities of daily living, VILPA elicited a physiological response at an average of 77-83 seconds for %VO₂max and %HRmax, and 45 seconds for perceived exertion. The absence of a difference in the time to reach VILPA between sex and age suggests that a consistent behavioural VILPA translation can be used in interventions and population-based studies designed to assess the health effects of incidental physical activity.
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Copyright 2024 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of the American College of Sports Medicine. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)