Should You Buy a Stand-up or Treadmill Desk?

Stand-up and treadmill desks are beneficial only if you stick with them long-term. You still need to exercise, too, if you want to get or stay healthy.

If you work all day sitting in a chair, you’re hurting your body. All that time on our rears dangerously slows our metabolism and promotes heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Some health-minded folks have taken to treadmill and stand-up desks or sit/stand desks that pop up and down with a hand crank or electric mechanism.

The problem is that most people who use these desks still don’t get enough exercise. By all means, look for alternatives to a lifetime of sitting, but make sure you get exercise, too.

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The case against sitting

When a gold star committee reviewed the research in 2018, it concluded that there is strong evidence that being sedentary increases your risk of type 2 diabetes and dying from heart disease — or any reason.

As just one example, in a 14-year study published in 2017 following more than 29,000 American women in their 50s and 70s, volunteers who sat more than 10 hours a day increased their odds of dying before age 85 by 20 percent.  Less strong evidence links sitting to certain kinds of cancer.

What about standing?

That could strain your legs, knees, and lower back. As Alan Hedge, a design and ergonomics professor at Cornell University, has pointed out, a hundred years ago office workers stood all day and developed back problems and varicose veins.

Sit/stand arrangements give you flexibility. There are products that you place on top of an ordinary desk and special desks designed for laptops or to raise just a keyboard and separate monitor. When customers call Nick McElhiney, a certified ergonomics-assessment specialist who sells a variety of products through ErgonomicEvolution.com, his first question is about how tall you are. “There’s a whole bunch of ergonomic equipment that is being misused and causing more problems,” he says.

Before you invest, though, consider whether you’ll really use the standing option. In a small four-week study, office workers given sit/stand desks ended up standing instead of sitting for 8 hours a week, less than 2 hours a work-day. That’s pretty good, but the study lasted only a month. Hedge has found that most users of sit/stand products stand for only 15 minutes a day for the first month or so. Then they just sit.

A treadmill desk is more ambitious

According to federal guidelines, you should be getting 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity every week. Treadmill desks let you move while you work.

A Canadian team reviewed the evidence for those kinds of desks through the end of 2020, relying on blood pressure as a health measure. The research concluded that people did burn up more energy at treadmill desks than people who sat but didn’t find any improvements in blood pressure.

Why might that be? Unless you’re already fit, you may not move fast enough to meet the federal guidelines. In one three-month study, about 20 overweight and obese employees at a large insurance company were given treadmill desks and asked to walk on them at a comfortable pace for about 45 minutes twice a day. On average, the employees did only one session and walked slowly. They did increase the average number of steps they took in a day by about 1,000, which has potential health benefits.

Again, however much you do is the key to whether you’ll keep it up.

In a longer study, over 6 months, 18 people rotated on and off treadmill desks. They walked on the treadmill on average about 3 hours a day. In this group, people lost weight and showed improvement in their cholesterol levels. In a year-long study, participants working at treadmill desks also increased their activity and lost weight.

You might be concerned that working at a treadmill (or cycle) desk could affect your work. One study did find that people typed more slowly while on an active desk, but they also seemed to have better recall.

What else can you do if you have a desk job?

You can add movement into your day by standing up and stretching and lifting hand weights. Walk over to a coworker rather than sending an email, take the stairs when you can, and exercise at lunch. If your job requires driving for long stretches, stop every 2 hours.

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