Walking Desk
kushaldas.in
kushaldas.in
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!
I truly can't recommend a treadmill desk enough.
Edit: You can see my setup (sans laptop) here: http://imgur.com/Jqfy8eG
It was just enough exercise to keep me focused on the code, but not too much that I was tired.
The thing that does suck is using the mouse. But as a developer that's not a problem. My hands stay on the keyboard when I code.
I used to hate working on a laptop till I learned Vim, now it's easy!
You are walking too fast.
>Why not get 3 hours of real work done, followed by 1 hour of real exercise, rather than 4 of neither?
http://qz.com/223160/why-not-even-exercise-will-undo-the-har...
I was distracted by the bobbing up and down for the first day. It was a little less distracting by the second day. And by the third day I didn't even notice it. I was able to get in my regular programming zone with ease.
In fact, I find that walking can often get me focused faster.
But, I am somewhat of a kinesthetic learner. Motion helps me think. So your mileage may vary.
The general concensus (currently) seems to be that 8 hours of sitting (read not ever moving around) is bad for you whether you excercise or not. I would think an under-desk bike like you describe would also be effective in remedying the problems caused by sedentary work. I'm thinking about adding a balance board like someone else here suggested.
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 :)
After the fact, I think I just wore out my shoes and had no dampening left in them. Get good shoes...often.
My $.02, YMMV, etc.
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.
Seriously though, there's plenty reason.
I imagine it would enable faster walking speeds.
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.
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.
It's not just high food availability we have - I'm a few steps away from a ton of high calorie foods and could get more sent to my house without leaving my chair. In the past, even with plentiful supply, one had to [generally] put in some effort to get food. That doesn't seem to be the case for many now.
In the scenario of high food availbility meaning there's plenty of fruit to gather (and process to save for winter) and there's plenty of deer to chase then I can see I'd get more exercise.
It also helps that learning a style of dance engages my mind. Gives me something to focus on instead of mindlessly pumping out reps.