The effects of exercise snacks interventions on physical function in healthy or sub-healthy adults remain unclear. Exercise snacks intervention is defined as breaking up daily physical activity into brief, frequent bouts performed intermittently throughout the day (e.g., 1–2 min of stair climbing or bodyweight training hourly). This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of exercise snacks interventions in improving physical function in this population.

The systematic search covered the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), China Science and Technology Journals (VIP), Wanfang, PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Scopus databases, screening relevant randomized controlled trials published up to July 31, 2025. The risk of bias in the included studies was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool, and data analysis was performed with RevMan 5.3.

This study included 11 eligible randomized controlled trials involving 472 participants. Meta-analysis results demonstrated that exercise snacks interventions significantly increased absolute peak power output [MD = 16.53, 95%CI (2.93, 29.77), P = 0.02], maximal oxygen uptake [MD = 0.19, 95%CI (0.02, 0.36), P = 0.03], the number of repetitions in the 60-second sit-to-stand test [MD = 4.38, 95%CI (1.00, 7.77), P = 0.01], while significantly reducing body fat percentage [MD = −3.12, 95%CI (−5.51, −0.73), P = 0.01]. However, no statistically significant differences were observed in improving fatigue levels or BMI.

Among healthy and sub-healthy adults, exercise snacks interventions enhance cardiorespiratory endurance by increasing Wpeak and VO _2max . Concurrently, they improve functional movement capacity by increasing the number of 60-second sit-to-stand repetitions and reducing body fat percentage. As a feasible, convenient, and easily integrated exercise method, exercise snacks demonstrate significant potential for health promotion.