If you find it difficult to squeeze in a workout around your busy work life and if your daily exercise routine involves a quick dash to Starbucks for your mid-afternoon caffeine-fix, an American doctor might just have the answer... a 'treadmill desk'.
Dr James Levine from the Mayo Clinic, is the brain behind a new ‘standing desk’ concept, which is essentially a treadmill with a desk attached, giving a whole new meaning to ‘working on the go’.
After spending the last ten years using a walking desk, Dr Levine firmly believes that sitting down at a desk all day is as dangerous to a person’s health than smoking.
“Researchers have linked sitting for prolonged periods with a number of health problems and premature death from cardiovascular disease,” Dr Levine says on the Mayo Clinic website, reports the Daily Mail.
Dr Levine also claims that office workers could burn off an extra 100 calories a day and shed up to 57lbs a year by slowly walking on a treadmill desk as they work.
"Over the last 150 years we've become chair imprisoned. We are behind a screen all day at work. We are in a car or bus getting to and from work. And in the evening, we are in a chair watching television or surfing the internet. We've gone from being on our legs all day to being on our bottoms all day,” explains Dr Levine.
However the ‘Walkstation’ treadmill desk concept doesn’t mean sweating it out on the treadmill for 10 hours – because according to the doctor, simply standing up during the work day helps shift weight and keep us fit, too.
“Muscle contractions, including the ones required for standing, seem to trigger important processes related to the breakdown of fats and sugars. When you sit down, muscle contractions cease and these processes stall.”
The doctor is currently trialing his ‘Walkstations’ idea and it could possibly appear in an office near you soon.
Would you try the ‘Walkstation’?