Walking While Web Surfing - Building a Workstation on a Treadmill

After having a baby and moving half way across the country, I found myself with a telecommuting position, an infant and no time to workout. As if having a baby did not throw my body out of whack enough, I also went from working out five days a week to none which does not do wonders for a new mom's moral. While websurfing, I found an article about Dr. Levine at the Mayo Clinic who is creating what he dubs the "Office of the Future", an office that is built around movement.

Inspired to begin walking while working, I scoured the web looking for a pre-built walking workstation. When I could not find an out-of-box solution, I decided to use Craigslist, IKEA, and Home Depot to build a custom work area.

I looked for used treadmills on Craigslist and finally settled on a NordicTrack for $750 that a woman was selling to free up space in her living room. When researching treadmills, it is important to buy one whose motor will allow a user to walk at 1.0 mph. This might seem like a slow pace however when walking for extended periods of time a slow pace is required. Another important consideration when purchasing a treadmill is whether or not the motor bogs down considerably when the user is walking at 0.7 or 1.0 mph. After purchasing the treadmill and paying someone to haul it for me, the next step was finding a standing desk to hold the monitor.

The standing desk was the first major roadblock in building the walking workstation. Neither the office supply stores nor the online stores stocked a standing desk with the dimensions required to go around the treadmill so it seemed that a trip to IKEA was in order. IKEA also did not carry standing desks of the proper dimensions, but they did carry metal shelving units. The metal shelving units were also not quite the right size but I took one of the metal shelves and tied it to the arms of the treadmill using ribbons I cut off of balloons given to my daughter at the grocery store. While the workstation was almost complete, the arms of the treadmill sloped slightly downwards so the monitor fell right off.

Not being one to give up so easily, I went to Home Depot to buy some hardware that creates a shelf that is parallel to the floor. For around $30, I purchased a wood shelf, a couple of hinges, some wood shims, and several U-bolts. After screwing the hinges into the wood shelf and attaching the hinges to the metal shelf, the shims are used to create the proper angle between the wood and the metal shelf and the monitor sits on top of the wood shelf. The U-bolts are fastened to the metal shelf to prevent the keyboard and the mouse from sliding right off the shelf. After plugging in the computer and treadmill, the new setup was ready to go.

If I could go back and do this over again, I would buy a little bit of a smaller treadmill with arms that are parallel to the floor rather than sloped. There are some standing desks out there that can be used without modification for treadmills that are not as wide or tall as the NordicTrack I bought. Other than this one annoyance, the walking workstation has been a wonderful way to add exercise into my daily life. Dr. Levine stated that he is coming out with a workstation/treadmill combo created for this purpose but until then, we will have to build our own.