I’m participating in a contest sponsored by ClockSpot an online time clock company. To participate I will be answering these questions.
“If you were responsible for producing the next revolutionary technology, what would it be? How would you use Clockspot to help your endeavor?”
I work in an office, an office with lots of low rise cubicles. I sit for about 15 hours a day between commuting, working and later watching TV. Because of this sedentary lifestyle and my lack of major exercise I have gotten fat. About a year ago I learned about the Treadmill Desk and the concept of NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis). I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up my own Treadmill Desk but I have not found the type of desk I’d really like. So this is what I would like to create.
The TreadRider Workstation
I’ve been reading more and more about James A. Levine, M.D. of Minnesota. He has created an “Office of the Future” with Treadmill Desks and a two lane walking track for meetings. That is great and all but with the focus simply on walking I think that people will get bored quickly.
The TreadRider Workstation would be a combination Treadmill/Recumbent Bike/Desk. This would revolutionize the way that people work and workout.
Let’s talk about the Treadmill – Since the main purpose of this treadmill is to be a part of a productive workstation it does not need many bells and whistles like high speeds or high inclines. When you are working and walking you will walk at 1 – 1 1/2 miles an hour. This is about constant motion to burn calories and not necessarily to push you into a high impact workout. The speed of one mile an hour is a natural speed at which people walk around the office most of the time so while it seems slow you can burn over 100 calories and hour and put in an eight hour day and now you’ve burned 800 calories in the day. So the treadmill can be very, very basic and still accomplish the workout goals. The treadmill could be lifted up and out of the way to clear space as well as for easy cleaning around the station.
The treadmill would also be completely integrated into the workstation and it would record your miles walked, calories burned and heart rate (with a monitor). I would also want to have the treadmill connected to ClockSpot so that when the user connects their laptop to the workstation and the treadmill starts up the user is automatically logged in to work for the day, disconnecting the laptop logs the user out for the day.
We’ll talk about the recumbent bike. The recumbent bike will be at a right angle to the treadmill so that this unit could be placed in the corner of a room or you could connect two TreadRider Workstations together. You could put four of them together too so that people could work on projects together and discuss with each other. I would also have the recumbent bike able to be lifted up off of the floor to be out of the way.
The Workstation – This would be a height adjustable desk that would have a docking station, wireless mouse, keyboard and a large monitor 23 inches at minimum because eye strain is a concern especially when being so further away on the recumbent bike. This could easily be solved with the ability to swing the monitor on an arm closer to the user. The station should also have cupholders for water and an integrated ipod/ipad dock and speakers. The desk itself will be able to rotate ninety degrees and come down in height to be used with the recumbent bike. The keyboard can be pulled forward and set on an incline so that your legs do not bang into the desk.
Many people have created their own versions of the treadmill or recumbent bike desk but none of them have the integrated productivity focus of the TreadRider Workstation.
We need to do something to battle the epidemic of obesity in this country and soon others. By integrating ways to incorporate NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis) into your employee’s daily life you will revolutionize your workforce.
I’d like to thank Clockspot and FuelMyBlog for this contest and giving me the motivation to put out this idea.
