WorkWhileWalking.com has amassed the largest body of expertise on the proper setup and use of office fitness equipment, including standing desks, treadmill desks, desk cycles, and standing mats, and it’s all in one place — right here! The advice below comes from the top experts in treadmills, ergonomics, office technology, and the medical field.
We strongly recommend reading the advice in this section before setting up your own active workstation. And if you’re already using a standing desk, or a treadmill desk, you’ll still find tons of great advice on improving workstation ergonomics, productivity, endurance (and consequently, calories burned) and even power consumption.
Choosing a standing desk can be a daunting affair these days. With so many options on the market, you might be tempted to go for whichever result you see first in Google. However, it pays to do your research, as the products in those results are often not the best but are the most expensive. Check out our ultimate standing desk buying guide to make the best purchasing decision.
We’ve helped thousands of users get their first treadmill desk—and for that matter, over a million site visitors have read our reviews and advice—so we tapped our staff experts for their favorite tips to new users for the optimal treadmill desking experience, and collected them all here.
A common answer for this has been to raise your desk so that your arms are bent at a 90-degree angle when you type. This is a partial solution: a 90-degree angle keeps your wrists straight when you type (assuming your keyboard is level with your desk top) and helps prevent the wrist strain and injuries that come from improper wrist posture.
Every day we have hundreds of readers researching this very question when looking through our reviews, so we thought we'd dedicate an article to the big picture discussion of when is it best to move aside your old desk and replace it wholesale with a new adjustable-height desk, and when it might make more sense to simply attach a "standing desk converter" to your old fixed-height desk.
In our efforts to find the best in office fitness furniture and ergonomic office products, we’ve developed a unique evaluation process that provides the most exhaustive analysis of any given product. Every aspect is put under our microscope, and this helps us create the most comprehensive individual product reviews, as well as side-by-side comparison guides.
Until relatively recently, treadmill desks were so “on the fringe” that workers who wanted them often paid for them out of their own pocket. Getting permission to bring one into the office was difficult enough, presuming they even had the space to install one in their office (or else the gumption to ask for a larger office). But times have changed.
In our efforts to find the best of the best in office fitness furniture and ergonomic office products, we’ve developed a unique evaluation process that provides the most exhaustive analysis of any given product. Every aspect is put under our microscope, right down to packaging quality and ease of installation.
This is one of those times when the only way we can simplify the answer is to say “you get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.” Higher-cost bases will have more metal, and that means more rigidity, and lower risk of side loads straining on the motors and wearing down the gaskets. You should also see warranty term go up with cost.
Relax, a swarm of snakes has not spontaneously decided to attack your desk. Nor has a forest of exceptionally flexible bamboo sprung up around its legs – no, fellow deskers, what you’re seeing is a workstation in dire need of some cable management.
It is vitally important to stretch your legs, calves, ankles and lower back frequently when using a treadmill desk. As great as the benefits of raising your basal metabolic rate are, doing so requires using your leg and back muscles a lot more than you are probably used to. The fact that the pace of walking is set by a machine and the terrain is consistently even leads to more muscle str…
There are basically two ways to go about building a standing desk. One way is to go "DIY" style (Do It Yourself), buy your standing desk frame of choice, and then either make your own desktop or buy one you really like from a separate source. The other way to go is to buy a complete standing desk from one of the many makers who sell them online today. The latter is what 90% of buyers do,…
The question of exactly how many more calories you can burn hasn’t been thoroughly understood because existing calorimeter algorithms are all based on cardio heart rates, which are by definition well above NEAT range. Until now.
To gather data for these ratings we combine our review team’s experience with user reviews posted online (both on our own sites and 3rd party websites) by verifiable owners of that product.
Walking at 1-2 mph in the office might seem like a casual enough process, but treadmill desk users need to think of their feet the way professional runners do if they want hours of comfortable walking. The best strategy for staving off foot fatigue is to invest in a new pair of walking shoes that you only use on your treadmill. This will keep dirt from the great outdoors from getting on …
Many people hear or read about the concept of a standing desk and are instantly sold on the idea, often purchasing one on the very same day. No one can fault them for wanting to ditch the chair as soon as humanly possible. But what we often find is that even people who've been working at a standing desk for many years are unable to use their desk in standing mode for very long—sometimes …
Let's face it, kids hate sitting for endless hours as much as adults do, if not more so. You don't have to be over 40 to feel the physical anguish of sitting too long without getting movement.
A simple tool to help prevent standing pains is with an anti-fatigue standing mat. These mats keep the muscles in your feet and legs engaged, preventing them from becoming stiff. A separate study of anti-fatigue mat performance by Texas A&M found that standing on a quality anti fatigue mat—one with a 100% polyurethane construction, like the EcoLast—leads to less spinal compression and gr…
A common question we get here at WorkWhileWalking is how much weight can a person lose using a treadmill desk? Results vary wildly because a treadmill desk is not a substitute for getting cardio exercise or a proper diet, and everyone’s body is a little different.
All adjustable height desks will become less stable as they reach the last few inches of leg extension. This is just basic physics; the telescoping tubes have less and less overlap between them and so the desks become more susceptible to left-right shake (lateral stability) as they get taller. front-to-back shake (longitudinal stability) will also increase with desk height, naturally, so…
Some manufacturers, perhaps in the efforts to cut costs, stubbornly continue to ignore ergonomics, and very often end up producing products that may cause as many ergonomic problems as they purportedly solve. The effort it takes to find a device that suits your individual anthropometry (the unique dimensions of your body) will help keep your body healthy in the long term while you stand …
We all know the health benefits of treadmill desks in preventing sitting disease. However, exaggerated marketing claims often mislead readers with promises of dramatic weight loss – eye-grabbing headlines like "Lose 50 lbs in a year!" making the rounds. Some eager new treadmill deskers buy into the marketing and expect some kind of miracle panacea – as if their new desk is all they need …
It is vitally important to pace yourself when using a treadmill desk in order to prevent muscle stiffness and soreness. Unless you already spend several hours a day walking you’re going to discover some new muscle pains – mostly in the lower back but potentially in the legs and feet as well – if you overdo it. To avoid injury – or worse, a rough start that will make you give up treadmill…
Over 90% of people who have Type II diabetes struggle with weight problems. The correlation is so direct that most people consider the words “obese” and “diabetic” to be synonymous. In addition to high blood sugars (“hemoglobin A1C”), people suffering from obesity are also more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides and a high percentage of bod…
It may not seem very important at first blush, but the width of your treadmill belt is an important part of treadmill desk safety. Working while walking on a treadmill desk is - let's be honest - a bit unorthodox. Instead of swinging your arms back and forth to keep your body in balance – the way you do when you walk normally – you tether them to the keyboard and/or mouse much of the …
Rather than wasting your time and cash on a running treadmill you're just going to have to replace, it's better to invest in a dedicated, commercial-grade office treadmill.
When it comes to real office treadmills like the iMovR ThermoTread GT Office Treadmill Review you'll find that peak torque performance is at the top design speed of the treadmill AND that the motors are very high-powered (3.0 HP is an appropriate size). The top speed of a real office treadmill will never exceed the maximum speed for NEAT heart rate, usually 2.0 or 2.5 mph. The bonus for …
Without a doubt, the LifeSpan Fitness Club software is useful to anyone who wants to keep track of all their data. If you're going to get involved in treadmill desking and you want to keep track of your usage, the best option is to invest any LifeSpan equipment - all of their products come with FREE membership included. However, it is conceivable that you could buy a different brand of a…
The fact is that treadmill desks are generally operated at a range of 1.0 to 2.0 mph, slower than one walks down the hallway to the legal library. Officially, “typical walking speed” is defined as 3.1 mph, but bona fide office treadmill bases have a top speed of 2.5 mph or less, and physically cannot be punched up any higher into a potentially dangerous running speed range.
"As you know I have recently adopted the use of a treadmill desk in order to improve my productivity and stave off the ravages of "sitting disease." Being as these are fairly new devices in the workplace not a lot is commonly known about the proper etiquette when approaching someone who is working on a treadmill desk."
One of the biggest hurdles to widespread treadmill desk adoption in the workplace is that most large enterprises have never had one before and may be reluctant to purchase an entire fleet for their employees, sight unseen.
Wrist pain is a common enough malady for office workers, and treadmill desking can exacerbate those strains. This is why it’s imperative that your typing position is as ergonomic as possible. Keyboard trays can provide some relief, and desks with built-in SteadyType keyboard trays like those from iMovR, for example, provides the ideal wrist setting for treadmill deskers.
Staying properly hydrated is incredibly important for so many bodily functions. Water transports vital nutrients to your cells, regulates your body temperature, rids your body of waste and toxins, and performs several other functions that keep you alive and healthy. Athletes know the importance of staying hydrated during exercise: muscle spasms, weakness, and kidney failure are all sever…
If you work around other people, they probably won’t notice your treadmill is even on, since a well-lubricated treadmill will only register around 50 decibels or less, about the same noise level as someone whispering. What they will notice is your footfall.
If you’re comparing treadmill bases should you really take into account whether they’re rated for users at 250 lbs., 300 lbs., 350 lbs. or 400 lbs.? Yes, it matters a lot more than you might think, and here’s why:
Placement of an under-desk treadmill at the workplace can be tricky in some smaller offices so take the time to really think it through before assembling your workstation. Like any desk where you’re going to have a computer you don’t want it opposite a window where the sun will create unbearable glare across the display or directly in front of the window where the sun will create unbeara…
The biggest safety issues for treadmill desk users are potential minor injuries (muscle aches, really) from improper ergonomic settings, insufficient stretching and pause breaks, or simply walking for too many hours at a time.
Perhaps the most common misconception about treadmill workstations is that they are "exercise desks." Though many people who've never used a walking treadmill desk may perceive these terms as synonymous, the difference in semantics goes to the core definition of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis ("NEAT") versus "activity-based thermogenesis."
Does your treadmill belt hesitate a little bit with every step? Is the belt making more noise than it did when the treadmill was new? If you're experiencing these symptoms your treadmill is most assuredly overdue for lubrication.
The vast majority of the issues we see with treadmills that start hesitating, snorting, or grunting have to do with leveling issues.