Walk this way

One of the benefits of working for a ginormous pharmaceutical company is the concern they have for employee health.  We have numerous fitness perks - within a 5 minute walk of my building there are volleyball courts, tennis courts, an outdoor track and even weight watchers meetings.  The latest is a 'walkstation' which is exactly what it sounds like - a work station where you can walk.  It is essentially a treadmill with a desk, but it is also set up with a laptop docking station, phone, monitor, mouse and keyboard so you can actually work while you're walking.  The max speed is 2 mph to assure safety, the desk height is adjustable, and the walkstations are located in private conference rooms so you can use a speakerphone rather than hold the receiver to your ear.

Behold:

Today I had a couple of teleconferences scheduled first thing in the morning, so I thought I'd give the walkstation a whirl.  It took a few minutes to figure out how to get everything up and running, but once I got my computer fired up and the desk height adjusted, everything fell into place.  In addition to the tc's I had scheduled, I wanted to bang out a couple memos and read some documents, so I tried all 3 activities during the 45 minutes I was walking.  Here's the report:

1. You cannot type accurately at 2 mph - the best speed for that activity is about 1 mph
2. I was definitely breathing a bit more rapidly at 2mph than if I was just sitting at my desk. So for teleconferences, 1.5 mph seems to be a better pace (to assure I don't get an unexpected phone call from HR).
3. Reading the computer screen requires neither manual dexterity nor the ability to speak without panting, so 2mph was just right for trolling through long documents.
4. In 45 minutes I walked a little over a mile and burned almost 200 calories, which is about 150 more than I would have burned sitting at my desk.
5. Next time I will not wear itchy wool dress pants.
   

All in all, I give the walkstation 2 hearty thumbs up.  The conference room was really large with a great view of the local landscape and was also well-lit and private.  The treadmill worked great and the adjustable desk height meant that I could stand up straight while working.  It was fun, gave me measurable results on my output and was easy to use.  I booked it again for next Thursday morning!