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?"

Comments

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/

Re:Treadmill desk

[wvmarle]

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.

Re:Treadmill desk

[virgnarus]

I can start seeing companies adding these as incentives to meet quotas. The slower you write the code, the faster the treadmill goes. If you make a syntax error, that's an extra mph right there, and if your code fails to compile successfully in the end, your minimum speed for the next work week is increased.

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:Treadmill desk

[goingToSay]

I've had a treadmill desk for about a year now. I started with a standing desk but found my legs got too stiff being still so I hacked up a $150 used treadmill. This has completely changed my work life. I had horrible back problems which made me question if I could continue as a developer. I had tried different chairs, desks, postures and had some success with software timers which forced me to move around every so often. After a few weeks of the treadmill desk my back was feeling better. After a few months all problems were gone.

I usually walk between 1-2 mph and have no problem typing and concentrating. The main drawback is that my work station is the treadmill desk and I can't sit. When I get tired I take a laptop to the couch (I work from home) but I'd rather be able to stay in one place were my good setup is. There are some desks which raise and lower mechanically which I plan to get at some point. http://www.treaddesk.com/">This company has some but they are expensive.

With the addition of an arduino I also geek out with data from the treadmill.

Re:Treadmill desk

[ColdWetDog]

I've tried the standing desk thing before, but I found it difficult to play any skill-based game, such as an FPS while standing.

Ahem.

I thought we're supposed to be working......

Re:Treadmill desk

[Gilmoure]

Read that even doing daily exercise isn't enough to overcome the effects of sitting for an hour. The body puts metabolism way down when you sit. Boss just got me a stand desk so hoping this helps. If you get one, make sure you also get one of those checkout person mats to stand on.

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)

Re:Treadmill desk

[e3m4n]

simply standing for 8hrs instead of sitting (once your legs adjust to that much standing) will increase your overall metabolism quite a bit, which in the long run can burn more calories than the average 20min/day 3x/week 'suggested' amount of workout. I'm not putting down exercise, theres no reason why you cant do both. Sometimes doing one will motivate you to do more of the other. Standing is very low impact and you can start to feel the difference in just a week or two.

Get a Geek Desk

[mrtwice99]

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

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: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!

I would imagine

[james_van]

that slapping some wheels onto a standing desk and pushing it with your elbows while you type would accomplish the task. Not entirely sure what pacing-enabled programming is though.....

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

Re:Plantar Fasciitis?

[Loether]

Planter Faciitis is a common overuse injury lots of runners get as well. Anytime you are using/overusing muscles in a way your body is unaccustomed to it can cause problems. Still, problems caused by exercise, usually have simple solutions, like easing up a little or adding a different exercise to compensate. Overall your risks of health problems are far greater from lack of exercise than from an overuse injury.

I say if you are interested in a standing desk, try it out, but have a backup sitting station as your body gets accustomed to it's newly used muscles.

Re:Plantar Fasciitis?

[Jahf]

The difference is:

1) Especially at a desk you can alternate regularly, which you should, which will vastly lower the risk.

2) Plantar Fasciitis sucks (I've had it) and can take up to a couple of years (since every time you walk you are possibly re-injuring it) to recover from ... but ... you're alive after those couple of years. Current research shows the amount of time we spend at our desks flat-out removes years from our lives.

Best solution: stand for at least 50% of the time.

Ok solution: stand for 100% of the time.

No solution: sit all the time.

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:Plantar Fasciitis?

[Jahf]

Walking: good
Standing: not as good
Sitting: awful

No one who works at a coding job is going to find a way to truly walk all of the time. Not today (someday I easily see this happening and a few hackers could definitely speed it up). But doing anything you can to avoid sitting is going to make you healthier. Standing is the way to go.

Re:Plantar Fasciitis?

[ScottSClark]

I stand about 8 total hours each day, but never more for 2 hours at a time. Sometimes I sit to take a call. Other times it's walking around to talk to folks or sit in meetings. This is one of those times when "balance" is key. Don't *just* do one thing. Never just sit or just stand or just walk. The body wants to keep moving to spread the exercise around the body. I personally am at my worst when I'm not following a regiment, as I err on the side of physical laziness. But that's what Outlook is for. I typically try to space my meetings so they *don't* all happen at once, giving me time to sit, stand, walk, etc throughout the day. I'm not coding fulltime though. For that I'd second what someone else said: drafting table. They can get pricey, even used; however, if you get one that is easy to raise and lower, you can stand and sit on an hourly rotation. The good ones can bear a LOT of weight. Back in the day, I had my big CRT right and keyboard right on it and the pneumatic bore the weight just fine. So any modern device is gonna be effectively weightless for the table.

Re:Plantar Fasciitis?

[ColdWetDog]

Don't stand (or anything else) ALL DAY.

Move around.

I suggest sprinkling toddlers throughout the workspace. That would keep everybody on their toes.

treadmill desk

[Anonymous Coward]

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

The future is (kinda) here

[American AC in Paris]

I'm currently working at my treadmill. I've clamped a cheap-ass particleboard shelf to the thing, and I walk at a nice relaxed 2-2.5 mph while I work. It holds my laptop, tablet, and phone, with plenty of room to spare for a beer. Works wonderfully. Granted, I'm not actually going anywhere, but it's an excellent way to get a long, easy, steady level of physical exercise in without actually impinging on your productivity one whit. Between this treadmill and carefully tracking my intake (using a Fitbit,) I've lost nearly [30 pounds|14 kilos] since January.

As for mobility, we're beginning to hit the point where tablet apps can be used for real, if not necessarily heavy, work. Diet Coda is a good example. There's some nice connectivity out there, too: the company I work for uses Lync and Adobe Connect, both of which have surprisingly rich tablet apps available. If you do meetings and/or collaborative work, they're quite nice.

Re:Yes, there is a way:

[localman57]

The iPad.

Oh, and The Cloud. Don't forget about The Cloud.

Giant Ball "Chair"

[CanHasDIY]

I've heard a number of folks tout the wonders of replacing your standard office chair with a big-ass inflatable ball.

Wouldn't know myself, the cube farm I currently occupy has a standing ban on anything that might be construed as personality.

Re:Giant Ball "Chair"

[aclarke]

I'm sitting on a ball right now. it is great, and I find it much better than sitting on a chair all day. I have both and switch between them as I feel like it. I can definitely feel in my back (in a good way) after an hour or so that I've been sitting on the ball, so I know it's doing something. I'm sure if I used it more, the muscles would get more used to it.

Anyway, I highly recommend it if you're able. If your workplace won't allow it, then they really suck, as it doesn't bother anyone else, it's not expensive, and it's good for you.

Wouldn't a Stationary Bike be easier?

[Bob535]

If you're doing it to keep fit, wouldn't a stationary bike be easier? The motion of walking is much more difficult to compensate for. A bike would also be lower impact, which would be better for something you are doing for a long time.

A year of standing

[jbessie]

I'm approaching a year at my standing desk. Here are the benefits I've noticed:

- I've got more energy
- I'm more productive, I don't seem to have that power down after lunch any more
- Less loitering around my desk as people can't seem to stand for very long
- Great conversation topic, people are extremely interested in the idea
- The most surprising aspect of this has been that sitting has actually become a relaxing break. It feels great to take a load off and I feel much less lazy about going home and watching a show or two since I've been up all day.

After some research I ended up using an Ikea Fredrik desk and it's worked quite well. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60111123/ I also picked up one of those anti-fatigue mats at Home Depot. It was too painful without it.

Other developers here at the office are now planning to transition as well too. I'd encourage anybody to give it a shot. If you can make it past the first week or two of leg and foot pain you should be fine. It's not that bad and the benefits are worth it.

the secret is

[fluffythedestroyer]

Just get your ass up and walk around for a couple of minutes (your break ?). Just go outside or walk around. Change your environment, the air, your surrounding for a couple of minutes, its free, relaxing and after a while, it will act like a drug. But you gotta start doing it and sometimes it acts like a car, it's slow to start this type of attitude, but once your doing it, you wont stop. besides, your boss cant make you work 12 hours non stop no break no lunch, that's just impossible and if thats the case, change jobs...seriously

LifeSpan TR1200-DT Treadmill Desk

[wirefall]

I've had this for a couple of months and it has significantly changed my health for the better.

http://www.amazon.com/LifeSpan-Fitness-TR1200-DT-Treadmill-Desk/dp/B006M2PJV0

I have this setup next to my recliner. I use a splitter and dual monitor stands for both stations, so all I have to do is grab my wireless keyboard and trackball and move from one to the other.

I found fine control of a mouse while using the treadmill to be very challenging. I would definitely recommend using a trackball.

It'll happen soon

[DogDude]

I think within the next 10 years, this will be entirely possible. Medical researchers are making some great strides for mapping the brain and reading synapses firing from outside of the head. I think that as soon as it's practical, it'll be marketed like crazy, and it'll be a cheap technology very, very quickly. I think in 10 years we'll be thinking, instead of typing or using a mouse, and if you can program in your head as you walk/run, then sure, you'll be able to do it.

Recent article with video

They've got most of it figured out pretty well. It's just a matter of refinement at this point.

For Android Developer:

[WetCat]

Install AIDE and go for a walk in a park with your phone, having your IDE handy with you. Or put your phone/pad to a treadmill in front of you.

Re:focus on one activity at a time

[thesandtiger]

Not in my personal experience, which is all that is relevant to me.

I switched from a regular desk to a standing desk and I've noticed that I have more energy throughout the day, less pain from things like sciatica, and feel the need to take fewer breaks. I've also noted that I am getting more work done in less time, and the work is generally the same to slightly higher quality by a number of metrics. My workday winds up being about an hour shorter than before, but I am a little more productive, basically.

And, my exercise routine has actually gotten a boost as well. Because I am using my legs more during the day, I would think - my running speed is a bit faster (my mile has steadily improved since the shift to a standing desk after plateauing for over a year) and my flexibility has also been improving a bit.

I don't walk at my desk, though I may incorporate a treadmill, but rather I kind of hop around and dance a bit, do basic squats, etc. looks dumb, but I don't really care. The more active things are done when I'm reading email, but I am still pretty active when doing more mentally challenging stuff.

For the record, about 75% of my day involves writing code, designing software, or analyzing data. It was a bit distracting for the first 2 days or so; I was consciously thinking of standing and remembering to move around, but after that it just became a habit and takes no real attention.

So maybe your advice is good for some, but it is wrong for me, for sure.

Standing desks not good for you

[harlows_monkeys]

Standing desks are not good for you. Unfortunately neither are sitting desks if you sit too long. There's a good short look at the benefits and risks by the Cornell Ergonomics group.

Here is the bottom line from the aforementioned article:

Sit to do computer work. Sit using a height-adjustable, downward titling keyboard tray for the best work posture, then every 20 minutes stand for 2 minutes AND MOVE. The absolute time isn’t critical but about every 20-30 minutes take a posture break and move for a couple of minutes. Simply standing is insufficient. Movement is important to get blood circulation through the muscles. Research shows that you don’t need to do vigorous exercise (e.g. jumping jacks) to get the benefits, just walking around is sufficient. So build in a pattern of creating greater movement variety in the workplace (e.g. walk to a printer, water fountain, stand for a meeting, take the stairs, walk around the floor, park a bit further away from the building each day).

Re:Standing desks not good for you

[harlows_monkeys]

The link somehow got lost in my above post. Here it is.