Health and Wellness Benefits of Using the Workspace Fitness Devices
September 9th, 2018
Studies that confirm that the use of Workspace Fitness Devices such as the Smart Sit-and-Stand Desk and the Smart under-the-desk bike from Ergonomyx are beneficial for people who spend hours and days working behind the desk and want to improve their health or want to improve Injury Recovery and Pain Management.
Health and Wellness Benefits
Weight loss:
Dr. James Levine, the famous Mayo Clinic physician, studied the impact of active working on fat loss in in 2007, finding calorie burn during simple walking to be significantly greater than while sitting, and even standing. Levine and his team concluded that walking-and-working can result in weight loss of up to 45 – 65 pounds per year. The University of Pittsburgh validated these findings in a similar study published in 2015.
A group of scientists from the University of Iowa and the Chicago School of Professional Psychology at Xavier University of Louisiana provided under the desk bikes to a group of office workers for a period of 16 weeks and detected beneficial changes in weight, total fat mass, body fat percentage, and resting heart rate (2015 publication).
Biometric Health:
Long-term studies completed by the University of Massachusetts found treadmill desks to reduce waist and hip circumference by an average of 6%, while simultaneously improving LDL and total cholesterol by 7%. Additional analysis completed by the University of Prince Edward Island discovered improvements to both employee blood glucose and blood pressure, all without reducing worksite productivity.
Mental Wellness:
Purdue University researchers studied nearly 200 subjects to determine the psychological impact from using active workstations. Their results determined treadmill desk users to display 13% higher job satisfaction and 12% greater task stimulation than their seated counterparts. Treadmill walkers similarly experienced 30% less workplace stress and boredom, while maintaining task-specific efficiency.
Benefits for Injury Recovery and Pain Management
Improved Acute Back Pain
joint pain. The team found 20-40 minutes of simple walking, three times a week, to be as effective for joint pain as treatment in a clinical setting. Dr. Katz-Leurer lead researcher on the project, noted that the walking intervention also lowered blood pressure, boosted brain and immune system functioning, and reduced stress.
Improved Chronic Back Pain:
Chronic LBP is commonly treated with moderate success in clinical settings. Researchers found patient comfort to significantly improve when a walking intervention was added to traditional treatment. Pain relief from walking was so effective that 78% of patients were still satisfied with their result a full year following treatment, a 15% increase over the traditional treatment group.