My work time is almost all at the computer. I've noticed that if I spend all day sitting and working at a computer, I wind up feeling lethargic with strange aches and pains. Not only am I not making any fitness progress, but I actually feel like sitting is causing damage.
After hearing many experts say that sitting for a long time is bad, I decided I should look at a stand-up desk. As I researched the stand-up desk, I came across information about treadmill desks, and decided that was even more interesting. If I wound up not liking walking while computing, I could always just stand at the treadmill desk.
Well, it turns out that walking is way better than standing. When I stand and compute for long I find that I slouch, lean on things, and generally think about the fact that I am standing. When I walk and compute I forget I am walking. My body is busy and walking keeps it in a good posture without thinking about it.
I generally walk at 2.0 mph. I have no problem with typing, programming, and other computer stuff. Even the fairly intensive mouse operations of LabVIEW programming are no problem. It is difficult to write on a piece of paper on the desk while walking, but I don't do much of that.
Things slow down a bit at LabJack around Christmas, so I took the time then to research and build my treadmill desk. I looked at $1500 motorized desks that move up and down, a $550 TrekDesk treadmill desk from Amazon, and various homemade options at instructables.com. The motorized desk was too expensive and still needed something to get a monitor up at the proper height. The TrekDesk had some reviews saying it wiggled and still needed something to get a monitor up at the proper height. Once I saw some of the things people had done at instructables.com, I realized the key was separating the base from the rest of the treadmill, and building a setup with that in mind. I wound up using cheap and simple track shelving from Home Depot. It is very sturdy and lets me put everything at the perfect height.
I bought a 1 year old ...