Walking Desk

I&#x27;m totally not sold on the practically of so-called walking desks.<p>Reading text on a screen whilst your head is bobbing up and down, trying to make fine-motor-movements to click and type whilst walking, sounds like a recipe for low productivity.<p>Why not get 3 hours of real work done, followed by 1 hour of real exercise, rather than 4 of neither?<p>Or if you&#x27;re determined to combine (computer) work with exercise, a reclined exercise bike you can slide under a proper desk might be the better bet... at least your upper-body will be stable then.<p>Kudos for at least thinking about your health, anyway!

I built something similar a few years back. Walking at a snail&#x27;s pace for a few hours a day was nice for bloodflow and focus. Then I started getting major headaches. I went to the doctor and couldn&#x27;t figure out what was wrong.<p>Then I realized that my head bobbing up and down while staring at my screen was causing it. Stopped using the desk and it went away. I raised my screen to eye level and that helped. But the headaches still occurred so I reluctantly quit. Maybe I walk funny or I&#x27;m sensitive to it, but I&#x27;d like to warn anyone doing this to make sure you don&#x27;t make yourself sick. Beyond that, have fun and good luck explaining it to others :)

I used a walking desk for 4 months straight at 2 mph for 6 hours a day. The first few months where good but then I started getting terrible hip and joint pains. I ended up quitting because it hurt too much.<p>After the fact, I think I just wore out my shoes and had no dampening left in them. Get good shoes...often.

This is a cool project. However, when I tried this, I hound the forced rhythm (and noise) too distracting to be productive. When I removed the treadmill and went to a pure standing desk, something magical happened: it became a dancing desk instead. I still got the high heart-rate and full body motion from jamming to music, and could trivially bounce and pace around the room when stuck and needing to think. (I&#x27;m one of those people who paces while thinking yet before this I seldom integrated this into code.)<p>My $.02, YMMV, etc.

When the standing desk thing got boring for me, I added a balance board instead of a treadmill.

I use bigger fonts and I code all day. Having no problem after first 30 minutes.

Funny, one of the companies I was contracting with last summer got so wrapped up in this craze, they devoted an entire room to walking desks. You could go in there when you wanted and work. They have 8 treadmills rigged with a desktop so you could plug in your laptop and mouse and work while you were walking.<p>Never saw more than two or three people in there at a time, but the company made a big deal out of it. It looked pretty awkward, even when people were walking really slow.

Even if I did this, I&#x27;d be too embarrassed to put such a picture on the internet.

Has anyone tried a chord keyboard with a walking desk, something like the Twiddler?<p><a href="http://www.handykey.com/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.handykey.com&#x2F;</a><p>I imagine it would enable faster walking speeds.

I built one of these too! <a href="http://reustle.io/blog/cant-stand-sitting" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;reustle.io&#x2F;blog&#x2F;cant-stand-sitting</a>

I am in the minority on this, but quite skeptical of exercise for exercise&#x27;s sake. If exercise isn&#x27;t fun, your brain is probably trying to tell you it isn&#x27;t that great for you. Yes, I&#x27;ve read the research but remain unconvinced, I think the &quot;need&quot; for constant exercise may be a symptom of an underlying physiological problem.

I have done this with a recumbent bike and it&#x27;s pretty enjoyable.

What&#x27;s that book you seem to have a thousand of?

This seems like it would be difficult to work on

Oh god, it&#x27;s a battlestations thread. On HN. For shame. :(