Yep, you read that right. Almost two weeks ago, I bought a treadmill desk. It was my Christmas / New Year’s gift to myself because this year I’m finally going to get serious about my health and weight. I am not so lazy that I can only exercise while being on the pc, but I am smart enough to realize that I don’t go to the gym every day or stay longer than an hour when I do go because I am more interested in being online with my friends. So with my new purchase I can add to what I do at the gym by also walking while I’m doing dailies and talking in vent. It takes away the whole “I really need to spend 2 hours at the gym, but _____ will be online in 30 minutes and I haven’t talked to them all day” dilemma. I know, it’s a dilemma that I shouldn’t have ever had, but seriously, I didn’t get to be such a huge fatass by making the correct choices in life. So the treadmill desk is a fantastic option.
I first heard about these types of desks a few years ago when a saw a news special about treadmill desks being an option (a very expensive option) in some workplaces. I was immediately interested but the professional type were just too costly and too big to be something I could actually consider buying. But as things tend to do, now that it’s a few years later prices have dropped and options have increased. I bought mine from Target.com and 2 weeks ago it was priced at $713 with free shipping and because I used my Target RedCard, I got an instant 5% discount so that I only ended up paying $706 after taxes to have it shipped to me. Currently, the same one I bought is listed at $663 but it doesn’t say Free Shipping so I can’t say for sure what the final price would be. Here’s the link. It’s just my luck it would go on sale after I bought it, but I am so happy to finally have one I really don’t even care.
As far as a review of this particular model – I am very satisfied with it. It’s much bigger than the picture online made it appear. In fact, the desk portion is so huge the cup holders that are on the front edge of the desk aren’t even usable because there’s no way you can reach them while you’re on the treadmill. It’s very thick and sturdy feeling, it doesn’t feel like a cheap version at all. In fact, it came with a sticker on the control panel stating it’s rated for people up to 400 pounds. I am nowhere near that weight, but it does make me feel like it’s probably going to remain sturdy for quite a while since it’s built to hold a weight much higher than mine. As far as how comfortable it is to use the pc while walking, I find it to be just fine. If you were using it to do a great deal of constant typing, you may want to add some sort of keyboard wrist support, but since I’m only typing to chat and mostly using my mouse with my right hand and my game-related keystrokes with my left hand, I’m perfectly comfortable resting my hands on the foam molded areas on the sides of the treadmill’s control panel. It’s when you are doing serious typing and have to move both arms off of the molded areas and basically hover over the control panel that it would likely get uncomfortable. However, like I mentioned, I imagine it would be pretty easy to just scoot the keyboard back a bit and use your own wrist support.
My only complaint (cup holder issue is not a legitimate complaint, I just set my cup elsewhere) is that the treadmill handles both have controls on them. The right one has buttons to increase / decrease speed and the left one to increase / decrease incline. You can adjust the speed and the incline both from the main control panel, so I have no idea why they are also included in the handles. I suppose they thought it was a convenience, but they are easy to accidentally bump. Obviously I don’t hang on to the handles because I’m mousing and typing. And when your using the desk, that part of the handles is behind you anyway. But if you’re using the treadmill simply as a treadmill, which I do for at least 30 minutes so that I am actually walking at an increased speed, then anytime you reach down to the handle for balance or whatever, the controls are easy to bump. Of course, I assembled the damn thing myself so I suppose I could have simply not connected the wiring to the handles.
Alright, this is getting boring. Let me wrap this up. Treadmill desks are awesome. The one I bought is awesome. If you have any interest in owning one and are able to spend the money, I highly recommend you do so. I am so fat and out of shape I’m not yet spending all my gaming time on the treadmill, but I’ve tried to average 2 hours a day so far. I walk at 1 mile an hour while gaming and I look forward to increasing both my time walking and the speed at which I’m walking. I have been really surprised at how easy it is to actually do questing while walking. I initially thought I would just do simple tasks like fishing. Nope, I’m leveling alts while burning calories. It’s awesome. I’m hoping as I build up stamina and my balance gets more used to the whole event, I can actually run dungeons this way. However, I would never try raiding because raiding is way too serious to risk making mistakes.
And now, PICTURES! Since I live alone, my pc and desk are in my living room. I have no desire to spend all my time sitting in a bedroom facing a wall. I sit in the living room and talk to the cat while watching Netflix. I decided to place my treadmill desk next to my regular desk so I could simply move my keyboard, mouse and monitor back and forth instead of using my inferior quality laptop or moving my entire system daily.
Here’s what you see as you enter my living room:
Here’s the view from the other side:
My view of the TV for regular walking at 3mph:
And what it looks like while logged in:
