Treadmill Desk Profile

Im a proud experimental owner of a custom made Treadmill Desk made from random loose furniture/objects around the house to an el’cheapo 2nd hand treadmill. Put it together, add Laptop, wireless keyboard, extra monitor and wa-la, complete walk-station.

My Walk so far…
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Since beginning my days on computers, my active earlier life became a lot less active and spent most days locked into a chair and forgetting to blink let alone move my body. I’m a pretty active fella who surfs a lot and loves to skate and get outdoors whenever possible and sitting still for log hours doesn’t sit well with me. So fast forward many years ahead and now have condition related to RSI and the so called ‘Movie goers knee’. This was due to taking less notice on my body needs and working even longer hours on the computer. I got to the point were I was in a weird pain and could not deal with it anymore to the point I was considering leaving the VFX industry/sitdown computer job and getting a more active career, but I didnt want to waste all those years studying/work experiencing for nothing…. Soo

I started searching different ways that I could change my previous working habits. This lead to a few experiments:

1). Stand up desk

This sounded great at the time thinking it will relieve me of all my history pains/problems by standing and working at the computer. WRONG!!! Firstly, I did not study up enough on this experiement and I forgot to gradually ease my way into it. I started by standing most of the fisrt few days and my body felt it big time. On the 3rd day I went to go for a regular (more occasional/blue moon maybe) jog but could not even go 1 step without serious pain in my knees… wtflip now ??? That was the end of my 1 step run. Time to rest and abandon the stand up desk idea because of these reasons:

I kept on locking my knees, always putting to much weight on 1 leg, never comfortable etc BUT this opion would work well if you paced your way into it. Start by standing 15 mins of 1 hour, then sit for 45 mins. So If 8 hour day, would of standed for 2 hours.

2). Mini Cycler/bike under the desk

I found these little portable devices from a few google searches that lead me to visit Magnetrainer. I set it up under my desk but after 2 pedals and my knees cracking the underneath top of my desk I knew this was going to be tricky. So had to customise my desk with materials ling around at the time and resulted with this:

From exercise and work

Obviously it was not ideal but the pedal motion gave my knees better circulation throughout the day and the bonus of resistance on the bike could make it quiet an exercise if needed. The problem was that I was forgetting to actually pedal and work at the same time, so in theory I thought it was my answer but in reality was not the answer that I was looking for. Plus my whole goal was really to get out of the chair so come 5 o’clock I could go home and really enjoy sitting down, not sitting down 12 hours at times to go home and be greeted with another seat!!! : O

3). Treadmill desk

Ok, I have to admit I had been following this idea for at least 1 year but never thought I would have the time/space to try it out but after the other failing experiments I choose to have a crack at it. Found the cheapest 2nd hand Tread ($250- AU) that was called an ‘Hyper Extension’ and could tell it would not be ideal for running on but appropriate for walking on. It dosent have fancy elevation modes just turns the tread from 0.8 kph (0.5 mph) to 11 kph. So custom made my setup to meet my needs whilst working on my computer and this was the outcome:

From exercise and work

This has been by far the best and productive ‘Walk Station’ that I have used and my history knee pains/aches are long gone. I knew before I even set out to try it that the work I do is pretty pixel perfect precision but I have managed to get decent results using my Wacom tablet thats only 6×9 size, I think having a bigger tablet and at least a 24 inch screen with the resolution set lower (so everything is enlarged) would be perfect whilst speeds less than 2 kph. I find the slowest crawling speed of 0.8 kph is quiet good and keeps legs/blood flowing whilst not hindering performance. But if I have an extremely hard shot to work on I can always jump on a high draft stool and alter standing and sitting for the remainder of that/work. Works for me ; )

However, taking a Treadmill into a corporate office is another story. I read of people getting the ok from their bosses whilst others not so lucky. At Animal Logic in Sydney there was 1 fellow who used a stand up desk all day so Im sure I could slot a tread under the desk without people even knowing, well at 0.8 kph can hardly hear the thing. But if denied, I guess I would opt for the stand up desk and adapt to it correctly and hit a lunch time jog to break up the day.

At the end of the day my treadmill desk hasn’t replaced exercise in my life but has promoted better work performance, better health, feeling of accomplishment at end of the day, no more guilty feelings to relax on couch at night and most importantly taking away my knee pains that started my quest in the first place.

Thats all folks,

Keep on Treading on  _____________

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