So I Tried a Treadmill Desk

After the pandemic year, many of us are still working from home and plan to do so indefinitely. Not surprisingly, we’ve seen our step counts reduced drastically as a result. What if there was a way we could get those steps in, increase our physical activity, improve our overall health, and workplace performance, all without taking up any extra time in the day? There is, and luckily it doesn’t involve swallowing a tapeworm pill or submerging yourself in an ice bath. The answer is to put a treadmill under your standing desk, and walk at a slow pace throughout your workday (see study).

Pre-pandemic, I had no strong reason to get a treadmill desk. I biked to and from work everyday (about an hour long ride), and that was sufficient in terms of my daily cardio exercise. But working from home over the past year, and falling way short on steps count, I became treadmill desk-curious. The only thing stopping me was, I didn’t personally know anyone that had tried a treadmill desk before (to address any concerns I had about getting one). Even though it’s evangelized by the likes of Zillow’s CEO, the Late Show host, and a former Spice Girl, treadmill desking is still an obscure activity. Intuitively, it felt like something that I would like and benefit from, so I went ahead and bought an under-desk treadmill for just under $400 (I already had a standing desk to use with it).

Why do I care so much about getting my steps in?

You might remember the sensationalized headline, sitting is the new smoking. Countless studies have correlated chronic sitting with increased risk for diseases and death. And so the answer for us all was to stand more. But the reality is, standing all day is still a sedentary activity. And the problem with sitting isn’t just because it’s sitting… It’s because you aren’t moving.

That’s where a treadmill desk comes in: when you are spending more of your day moving, this improves your cardiovascular fitness, and puts you at a lower risk of sedentary-correlated diseases like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer and kidney disease in women, colon cancer in men, numerous chronic issues related to obesity, and death (see study). And so daily step count is just a means to an end, the end being better cardiovascular fitness.

My treadmill desk experiences so far

Here are some observations after two weeks of treadmill desking:

1. I have more energy and less stress

Using the treadmill desk makes my days feel like they are more flowing and I have more energy throughout the day and evening. I also noticed that at the end of the day, my legs and feet are tired, but I carry less stress in my body than I would have if I had been in a stationary position all day. This holding of less stress could be why I feel like I have more energy in the evening.

2. I get about 20,000 steps a day on the treadmill

On average, I clocked in around 20,000 steps on the treadmill per day during my first two weeks. I take breaks from the treadmill off and on throughout the workday, but try to walk a good portion of it. I also learned how to get my Fitbit to count the steps after reading a post in the Fitbit community: if I put the Fitbit in my pants pocket, it tracks the steps accurately. Longer-term, getting 10-15,000 steps per day on the treadmill feels sustainable to me.

3. Not all work activities are ideal for treadmill desking

My favorite times for using the treadmill desk are during group meetings (sometimes including ones I am facilitating) and focus time. Additionally, the treadmill helps me speed through busywork in no time (literally, I crank up the treadmill speed). I had mixed results using the treadmill desk during my 1-1’s. This was mostly due to my own comfort level around this, and I started using it more in 1-1’s during my second week.

For tasks requiring time sensitivity and hyper-focus, I found the treadmill desk hurt my performance. For example, I had an impending deadline on a task that required extra attention to detail and focus. I noticed that I intuitively stopped using the treadmill so I could give my full concentration to the task at hand. I wonder if over time, I’ll build the muscle to be able to focus more intensely while treadmilling. Only time will tell, for now I’ll use my intuition to gauge when the treadmill is helping vs. hurting my work performance. And of course, for things like giving presentations or conducting an interview, I keep the treadmill turned off.

Outside of work, I found myself using the treadmill desk in the evenings, sometimes during leisure activities like playing Minecraft, other times doing less pleasant activities like doing my taxes. My fiancé also enjoyed using it in the evenings while watching shows on Netflix.

4. Some unexpected observations

Here are a few unexpected things I discovered while treadmill desking:

• Outdoor walking: I feared I would do this less, but I found that I walk about the same amount outdoors as I did previously.
• Coworker curiosity: I feared what people would think when I started walking during meetings and 1-1’s. But most of my colleagues have been curious and supportive of me treadmill desking through the workday.
• Noise: The treadmill is pretty quiet, especially at the lower speeds, and I wear Bose noise-cancelling headphones on work calls so I don’t notice it (and coworkers haven’t either). At higher speeds, it’s a bit louder since it’s on a hardwood floor. I got some noise-reducing pads to not annoy the neighbors below us.

Treadmill desking isn’t a panacea

From two weeks of experience, I’ve found that treadmill desking has been a nice change of routine for me and a great way to stay active during the day while working from home. I’m hopeful that I’ll continue to experience the increased energy and reduced stress of treadmill desking once the novelty wears off. In order to make it sustainable and prevent an injury, I need to make time for stretching, yoga, and cross training (and getting away from my desk and outside whenever possible).

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that treadmill desking isn’t the answer, movement is. And there are many ways to get more movement into your day, here are a few:

• Step away from your desk and take a 5-10 minute break every hour (Microsoft just released a study that shows how this reduces stress)
• Walk during work calls where you don’t need your screen (or do this during personal phone calls)
• Take a break and walk up a flight of stairs a few times a day if you want an extra calorie burn (you’ll burn 2-3x more calories this way vs. walking on a flat surface)

This blog post originally appeared on DerekRalston.Com.

Credits

• Thanks so much to Joanna Chan, Marve Ralston, and Jason Divis for reviewing this blog post and providing your valuable feedback pre-publication!