Ask Slashdot: What Is the Future of Standing/Walking Workstations?

secretrobotron writes "As a developer who spends most of each day at the same desk in the same chair, I'm concerned about ergonomics and what I can do to keep my body from wasting away while I program. Some IT professionals have the relative luxury of being able to walk around on a headset, solving problems, installing equipment, etc. My utopia (albeit a pretty low-bar) is a world in which technology exists to allow me to walk about as I program. My question is, what's available? Are people working on mobile-programming in this way? Are there hybrid standing workstations which allow me to take advantage of pacing-enabled programming?"

Treadmill desk

[Anonymous Coward]

I was reading this today about someone's treadmill desk setup.
http://www.weighthacker.com/2012/06/05/how-i-hacked-my-computer-desk-to-help-me-lose-67lbs-pics/

Get a Geek Desk

[mrtwice99]

I plan on getting a Geek Desk: http://www.geekdesk.com/ [geekdesk.com] It won't allow me to walk, but its better than sitting all the time.

Plantar Fasciitis?

[Compaqt]

I was also interested in the idea of a standing desk, until I heard about Policeman's Heel (Plantar Fasciitis) and how standing all day can contribute to that.

Anybody in the know about that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantar_fasciitis [wikipedia.org]

treadmill desk

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.thehumansolution.com/uplift-treadmill-desk.html

Re:Get a Geek Desk

[Anonymous Coward]

My spouse works at a major financial firm, and they let employees choose between a standard height desk and one that you can work at while standing. They give the "standing height" desks a tall chair, so they can choose between sitting or standing without changing their hardware.

I have seen some desks with a treadmill that fits underneath the desk, letting you walk and work at the same time. I'm not sure I could handle that situation.

Re:Plantar Fasciitis?

[wvmarle]

ANY pose that you keep for long time is bad for you. Your body is made to move, to change position frequently.

To break the sitting posture, walking a few steps now and then is enough. Have your printer a few steps away making you get up to pick up a print-out is a great way to accomplish that.

Sitting all the time is bad. Standing all the time is bad. Lying all the time is bad. Especially when it's in the same pose. Having a good sitting/walking/standing posture helps a lot but it's no replacement for changing position every now and then. Ask any supermarket cashier that has to stand all day long on how demanding and tiring that is. Police constables have the advantage that they can walk around more, giving them more movement.

Re:Treadmill desk

[Kozz]

I have no idea how he can type accurately when walking. When typing on my phone it barely works, and there the keyboard moves with my hands - in that set-up the keyboard is fixed, making movement worse.

I'm lazy and don't feel like digging up the link, but I recall an Instructable (http://www.instructables.com/) in which the author created a treadmill workstation. However, the treadmill was only set to move at something like 1.5mph. This is a very, very casual stroll at best. However, it does keep you off your tuchis and moving. You'll still be a long way from anything resembling "exercise" I suppose, and you won't burn a tremendous amount of calories, but it's certainly an improvement upon sitting all day.

Re:Get a Geek Desk

[neonfrog]

There are many GeekDesks at my office. We like a height adjustable desk for a lot of reasons but primarily because tall chairs are rarely available in the broad ergonomic array that normal office chairs are. With a height adjustable desk you can use all kinds of things under the desk: a squishy mat under foot to provide some comfort and exercise when standing, a balance board or little stair-stepper thing (also standing), an exercise ball (sitting), etc. Sometimes I just want my feet on the floor or to use a footstool in front of me when sitting. No one has rigged up a treadmill yet, but it is only a matter of time. Height-adjustable is far more versatile than fixed height!

Re:Treadmill desk

[bevoblake]

I put together a treadmill desk about six months ago. Typing/mousing and walking is definitely a consideration. I had to reduce my mouse sensitivity slightly, and I also have to keep my walking speed at or below 2 mph in order to have any chance of typing accurately. I find I'm quite accurate at 1 mph. I reserve 2 mph for times when I'm mostly reading.

I also was unpleasantly surprised by the prices of the commercial offerings for these desks. I'm currently using a DIY cardboard desk and have a carpenter building a custom-made wooden desk, which will still be cheaper than the commercial offerings.

Regardless, I got into this because of 1. Ergonomics - sitting kills my back and 2. Health - this allows me to put in a decent amount of exercise with little to no joint impact while I work.

Plus, I'm slightly less stressed if I'm walking as I work.

Downsides: Until I get into the "zone" as I work, walking and managing a computer is annoying. Decent treadmills take up a ton of room. It's noisy enough that I have to stop it every time I get a phone call.

All in all, I'm glad I did it. And it provided me with a great excuse to wall mount a 60" HDTV as my computer monitor. :-D

Re:Treadmill desk

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's quite surprising just how many calories you burn with light activity - just standing up can burn calories almost twice as fast as sitting down, and walking can double that again to almost half of what an aerobic workout would do. Add in the fact that a standing/walking workstation may have you "exercising" for 40+ hours a week and the results can be very impressive (who other than a few fitness nuts does the equivalent 20 hours of aerobics a week?).

The trick is just that there's a sort of "exhaustion threshold" - below a certain exertion level you can maintain a fairly continuous activity level indefinitely, cross the threshold and your body starts having trouble keeping up with the demands you're putting on it and you start getting tired. Obviously every person has a different threshold, but our nomadic ancestry shows through - pretty much anyone if halfway decent shape can quickly acclimate to walking at a slow, steady, pace.

There's even some evidence that we're optimized for endurance running - running is unique among physical activities in that, with training, a 70 year old can compete on fairly even footing with a 25 year old. Performance still peaks in the 18-22 year old male demographic, but unlike virtually every other physical activity every other age and gender demographic comes in about equal. One theory is that our ancestors hunted on the plains by running their prey into the ground - we can't compete on burst speed, but we can out-endure just about everything else out there. But you can't very well haul a bunch of deer carcasses back to the tribe you left a couple days behind you, so the whole tribe needs to come along for the feast. (NOTE: all numbers estimated from memory of this TED talk [ted.com])