
Walking Desk - peedy
http://kushaldas.in/posts/my-new-walking-desk.html
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KhalPanda
I'm totally not sold on the practically of so-called walking desks.

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.

Why not get 3 hours of real work done, followed by 1 hour of real exercise,
rather than 4 of neither?

Or if you'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.

Kudos for at least thinking about your health, anyway!

~~~
bluedino
It's not a good solution for say, a programmer or graphics designer. It is
good, however, for someone who makes a lot of phone calls and such.

~~~
WalterSear
It's a good solution for a programmer or designer. It's a terrible solution
for someone whose phone calls will be distracted by the, otherwise minor,
ambient noise of a treadmill.

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stevepotter
I built something similar a few years back. Walking at a snail'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't figure out what was wrong.

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'm sensitive to it, but I'd like to warn anyone
doing this to make sure you don't make yourself sick. Beyond that, have fun
and good luck explaining it to others :)

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canterburry
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.

After the fact, I think I just wore out my shoes and had no dampening left in
them. Get good shoes...often.

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lukifer
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'm one of those people who paces while thinking
yet before this I seldom integrated this into code.)

My $.02, YMMV, etc.

~~~
tfandango
Yea, I think that's generally the idea. It's less about the standing and more
about the constant weight shifting one does while standing up, everything
remains engaged and you get some normal health benefit from it. My back hurts
a lot when I sit in a chair all day (even a really nice chair), so I prefer to
spend most of the day standing.

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

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

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at-fates-hands
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.

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.

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eglover
Even if I did this, I'd be too embarrassed to put such a picture on the
internet.

~~~
cfpg
Why would you be embarrassed about something you do? It's your reality.

~~~
avalaunch
By that reasoning nobody should ever be embarrassed about anything. And that
is definitely not a good representation of reality.

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zwieback
Has anyone tried a chord keyboard with a walking desk, something like the
Twiddler?

[http://www.handykey.com/](http://www.handykey.com/)

I imagine it would enable faster walking speeds.

~~~
matznerd
How fast can you type with one of those?

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reustle
I built one of these too! [http://reustle.io/blog/cant-stand-
sitting](http://reustle.io/blog/cant-stand-sitting)

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whiddershins
I am in the minority on this, but quite skeptical of exercise for exercise's
sake. If exercise isn't fun, your brain is probably trying to tell you it
isn't that great for you. Yes, I've read the research but remain unconvinced,
I think the "need" for constant exercise may be a symptom of an underlying
physiological problem.

~~~
dpark
Your body is optimized for saving energy, because for millions of years
starvation was a plausible outcome of wasted energy. This is the same reason
sweets and fatty foods taste better than kale. You're evolved to prefer
energy-dense foods.

Given that you post to HN, starvation is not a likely scenario for you.
Diabetes, obesity, heart failure, these are all health issues you could face,
and they are not things your body is evolved to avoid, because they were
comparatively minimal issues for millions of years.

The "underlying physiological problem" is that we are just not evolved to
overeat and be sedentary.

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whiddershins
I don't think the data supports the scarcity hypothesis. Unquestionably we
evolved to cope with scarcity. But humans often lived in periods of high food
availability. I think it is reasonable to assume my body is evolved to deal
with both high and low calorie environments, if it is functioning properly.
Anecdotal data bears this out as well. There are many people, including
myself, who have dramatically varied their caloric intake and exercise habits
with fairly minor changes in body composition.

~~~
dragonwriter
> But humans often lived in periods of high food availability.

Outside of the post-civilization period (which is trivial in duration in terms
of timelines required for substantial evolutionary change given human
reproduction patterns), I don't think sizable populations of humans have lived
for significant periods of times in conditions where large volumes of food
were available that didn't require substantial physical exertion to access.

"High food availability", sure, that occurred, but that only means a low risk
of starvation _with exertion to extract food from the environment_. It is a
very different thing than being able to avoid starvation while spending most
of your time sedentary.

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newman8r
I have done this with a recumbent bike and it's pretty enjoyable.

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yitchelle
Love to see a picture of a setup of if you have any?

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vxNsr
What's that book you seem to have a thousand of?

~~~
kushaldas
It is a very old detective story series, written in Bengali. I recently bought
all parts together. Finished reading them.

~~~
swatkat
Name of the series? Feluda? Byomkesh Bakshi?

~~~
kushaldas
Dasyu Mohan.

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CoffeePower
This seems like it would be difficult to work on

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angersock
Oh god, it's a battlestations thread. On HN. For shame. :(

