Just spotted this story on the NPR website: Can You Move It and Work It on a Treadmill Desk?
The author cites an expert who says not to try to walk on the treadmill all day long. Instead, walk for a half-hour on the treadmill, then a half-hour off, and so on, for two to three hours a day. That’s a maximum.
Don’t know if that means two to three total hours maximum of walking, or two to three hours maximum of on-off. The wording implies the latter.
Even just standing the rest of the time might be enough to mitigate “the sitting effect.” You are using your leg muscles, and that’s what seems to count most, from what I’ve read.
I liked finding out that someone is now an expert and is consulting with companies. There’s a new “walking meeting,” in which participants walk and talk.
Levine is on a mission to get any kind of movement into the workplace and the workday. He’s consulted with a number of companies nationwide to help them do this. The most popular activity by far, he says, is the “walk and talk” meeting. “They’re generally shorter, more productive, and people don’t fall asleep during walk-and-talk meetings.”
Also, during one study in which participants rotated on and off treadmill desks, the company earned its highest revenue ever.
The environment, he says, was simply “more dynamic.”
Yep, moving people are definitely dynamic!
Filed under: articles, body, sitting Tagged: counteracting office job, dynamic, FitDesk, movement, NPR, productivity, sitting, standing, standing desks, treadmill desk, walk-and-talk meetings, walking, workplace
