Sitting all day at a desk can lead to extra pounds when it puts your body’s calorie-burning machinery to sleep. So what’s a hard working stiff to do?
You can start with modifying your desk. This latest health trend seemed to have started with standing desks — to reduce the increased risk of death from sitting too much — and quickly escalated to treadmill desks. Yet I’m not sure if either of these has really caught on.
Now a recent study is suggesting yet another way to melt the pounds while we working-class souls are chained to our desks…
Researchers at Iowa’s Obesity Research and Education Initiative have found that by using a little pedaling device under your desk, a type of mini-exercise bike, you can pedal away pounds, keep your heart rate up and keep on working.
Biking while you work
Biking to work I get. I have a couple of co-workers who do this now. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. This is biking at work, while you work — at your desk.
Along with weight-loss, the study showed that office workers who did more pedaling increased their ability to concentrate at their jobs and were absent less because of being sick than their fellow, non-pedaling office comrades.
According to the researchers, the best results came from pedaling devices that were comfortable and easy to use. And having their own personal exercise bikes under their desks was hugely popular among the study’s test subjects.
“We wanted to see if workers would use these devices over a long period of time, and we found the design of the device is critically important,” says researcher Lucas Carr.
The scientists feel that people may be better off using an exercise bike desk than a treadmill desk, because it’s easier to sit and pedal and get work done than it is to walk on a treadmill and stay on task. I’m left scratching my head though, wondering how to possibly turn my desk into a bike.
“This is something that could be provided to just about any employee, regardless of the size of their company or office,” Carr says. “It’s right at their feet, and they can use it whenever they want without feeling self-conscious in front of their co-workers.”
The commonsense office workout
I understand that all this research is about improving health. But it seems a little extreme to imagine that most offices would actually install special bicycling desks for their employees. And as one who has enough trouble performing multiple tasks at one time, I’d have to question how it could improve productivity.
But more concerning is this: if somehow these special bike desks were to become affordably mass produced and mainstream in offices across the country, do we lose our breaks? Because I see the next trend coming and it’s not pretty: intravenous lunch so we never have to leave our desks. Well, except for bathroom breaks — and I’m not giving those up.
Seriously though, these new-fangled desk ideas are interesting — to say the least. But to keep fit, get your blood circulating, and increase your heart rate for several minutes a day, all you have to do is get up and move a few times thoughout the day.
I for one have always been a fan of the twice-daily 15 minute breaks we get at our office, in addition to lunch. I use that time to get out and get some fresh air and go for a brisk stroll outside of the office. I find that when I come back to sit for a few hours, both my body and my mind are refreshed and I’m ready to dive back into my projects.
There are a number of commonsense things you could do at your desk or in your office that don’t require ‘extreme desks,’ including yoga, alternately sitting and standing while you work, jogging in place for a few minutes here and there, or just taking quick breaks to stretch or do a couple of jumping jacks. All of this makes so much more sense, and seems much more doable than having a bike desk.
But to each his own. At least you wouldn’t have to worry about chaining your bike desk up. I don’t think anyone would want to take it.
