Office verticality

[gfish]

I've been engaged in an self-consciously hipster, tech-industry-snob experiment this year. First I switched to a standing desk, and then this summer I bought a treadmill to make it a walking desk.

So, yeah, as the years start to pile on, I've noticed some decrease in general fitness. But finding time to exercise? Not happening. I have limited non-working hours and do-stuff willpower, and all that needs to be dedicated to projects or else the depression sets in. Unacceptable. And that's where things stood for a long time, until the walking desk thing became trendy. "Gee," said my obnoxious programmer brain, "Why don't we parallelize this one unpleasant chore we do every day (work) with this other unpleasant chore we should be doing but aren't?" I had no valid response to that, so I switched to a standing desk as a phase 1.

It took about a week to get used to the standing desk. I also had a stool, so I wasn't standing all the time. (Plus meetings and lunch and all, I rarely stood more than 3-4 hours a day.) I saw two major results from this change. 1) I don't get sleepy in the afternoon. This is both good and bad -- turns out I was heavily relying on that tiredness as a feedback mechanism to know when I was running a sleep debt. Without it, I have to be a lot more conscious about getting enough sleep, or else I end up in a really bad, nauseously tired/sick place. 2) It really helped my back. I did plenty of stupid things during GMBLMZ construction this summer (have I mentioned I really need an overhead crane?), and I didn't throw out my back once.

Based on those generally positive results I bought the treadmill. Again, took about a week to get used to it. Learning to type was the hardest part, and also a bit of motion sickness when I would stop. (The first couple days I had to literally hold on to the desk for support for a moment after I stopped the treadmill! Now I can hop on and off without problems.) I got one of the treadmills designed for this, which wasn't cheap, but it can run all day without problems, it's so quiet my footsteps are the loudest thing, and it can run at speeds down to 0.6 km/h. I usually set it for 1.5 km/h, a nice slow stroll. Much more than that I get sweaty and typing is increasingly difficult. I do at least 2-3 km every day. 5-6 isn't uncommon, if I'm working on something that doesn't need a lot of brainpower. I find it's a lot like listening to music -- fine for most activities, but I turn it off when concentrating on tricky problems.

All in all, I quite like it. (It helps that I simply like walking.) I definitely have far more stamina now. I did a 9 mile walk last weekend and didn't really even notice it. The added leg muscle definition is nice, as that's the one body feature over which I indulge in any vanity. On the downside, my legs are stiff more or less all the time now if I'm not walking, though I'm also a lot better now at just ignoring that as meaningless static. And, yes, it flatters my geek vanity: Look, I can solve this common problem with highly-visible technology in a way that runs counter to social expectations! Look how clever I am!!! But really, it just feels nice to be a bit more active. I'm curious to see how well it works over the winter, when I always tend towards more of a hibernative state.

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

"I'm curious to see how well it works over the winter, when I always tend towards more of a hibernative state."

Have you played with adjusting what light you're exposed to?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

No, but I don't really mind being a bit hibernative. It's kind of cozy. :)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I love this idea, although unsurprisingly I'm fantasizing about an exercycle version thereof.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Those are also available. (Though there is less reason to get special hardware in that case.)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Likewise, I've been drawing up designs for, ah, rolling my own. (Grid-tie regenerative, of course. Man, designing grid-tie stuff is really demanding.)

[slantiness.livejournal.com]

That's so cool. I wanna do that someday. I actually do most of my computering at home *lying down* because I do it when it get home from work, so I *want* to lie down. Maybe if i was computering in a work context it'd be different? But I think about it a lot. I want to do it!

[ivy]

Huh. I've thought that the standing desks must suck just because standing for a million hours sounds painful to me. Walking, much less so, though. I'm glad it's kinda fun!

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Ever since I got back from )'( last year my exercise jam has been biking around Green Lake in the morning. Now that you mention it, I get stiff more, too.

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

Huh, what treadmill is it? The reason I haven't done this is the noise - I work in an open office environment. Well, and the size might be an issue. :/

[gfish.livejournal.com]

It's a LifeSpan TR1200. I'm in an open plan right now too, and there hasn't been a single complaint. It's really very quiet, particularly once you've used the weird codes to shut up the key press beeps. We're about to remodel, though, and I'm a bit worried about how it will work with the new layout. Not because of noise, but because I'll be looming over everyone around me. The extra couple of inches it adds standing on it are really noticeable.