Treadmill and Workstation Equals Walkstation

You're stuck at your computer all day and half the night. Walks and workouts become guilty pleasures as deadlines loom.

Should you get some much needed exercise or finish that draft?

It's midnight and you can't get out of the chair. Your posterior has grown roots and you're trapped . . .

Walkstation to the rescue!

What is a Walkstation?

It's a treadmill attached to a computer workstation--like in the picture.

The treadmill goes between one and a half and two miles per hour, and the unit is height-adjustable. It doesn't provide a workout or push you into an aerobic sweat, nor is it intended to. The point is to keep people upright and moving, because--as its inventor, Dr. James Levine, says: "Our bodies are meant to move. This is a reincarnation of what we're meant to be."

Dr. Levine and his proponents--many of them doctors--say that after a few hours on the treadmill, you forget you're moving. Their descriptions remind me of 15 years ago, when I had to get used to a computer mouse for the first time. After an hour or so of practice, maneuvering the mouse became second nature.

These people say that after a few hours, walking while working becomes second nature. Pointing and clicking, entering information, typing text, reading the screen--all no problem at all.

The only difference is that instead of sitting on your ever-expanding rump as you work, you stand and walk at a very slow pace, without even thinking about it. The objective is not to make you lose pounds, as you might with a regular exercise routine. Rather, it's simply to get you mobile. If you move more during your workday, you are healthier, fitter, less prone to aches and pains and less likely to pile on more weight.

You can watch a short video of the very-British Dr. Levine talk about the benefits of the Walkstation here.

I first heard about the proposed Walkstation on CNN a few months ago. Dr. Sanjay Gupta featured it in a segment, but it was not yet available. Now, according to theLos Angeles Times, Walkstations can be bought at several outlets, for a price of around $3,500 to $4,500.

Hopefully, like most new technological toys, that price will come down as popularity soars.

Steelcase, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the distributor (the actual manufacturer is TRUE Fitness Technology, according the Steelcase's press release). Steelcase worked with Dr. Levine of the Mayo Clinic to create the product, and they are swamped with requests for Walkstations. Designer Bud Klipa says the product will officially debut at the National Ergonomics Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, in November 2007 (later this month, iow), but some companies (like Salo, an accounting firm in Minneapolis) are already testing them on employees.

Steelcase says they plan a whole line of office-oriented fitness products called FitWork. Their phone number is 800-333-9939.

Some bloggers say it's too expensive (it was initially rumored to cost $6,500!) and suggest you could build your own (yeah, right) or get a little pedal machine for under the desk. I did buy such a pedal machine for under $100, but it didn't work well and I didn't use it much. The Walkstation seems superior because (a) you're can't be sitting while you use it, which is a big issue for us sedentary writer/researchers, and (b) you can't really stop and sit down without interrupting your work.