English archive > Micro-breaks > Activities and postures

We humans spend a large part of our time sitting down: at school, in the office, in the car, in the cinema, when eating, on the sofa watching television, at the computer, when reading, etc.

Muscles that get adequate exercise react to stimuli quickly and powerfully and are said to have muscle tone, i.e. they are toned.
When we over-exert them, they can increase in size. This is called hypertrophy, and means that each muscle cell has grown.

However, when our muscles are inactive for a long time, atrophy occurs, which means that they have become weak, sick or paralysed.

It is important to avoid bad postures which, minute after minute, hour after hour and day after day can adversely affect our muscles.
For this reason we’re suggesting a number of exercises that could be called "muscle micro-breaks".