“It’s Been a Game Changer”: Examining Treadmill Desk Use When Working from Home

Abstract

Previous research has established the physical and mental benefits of using active workstations like treadmill desks in the workplace, such as reducing sedentary behavior and improving mood. However, treadmill desk use when working at home has not been examined despite significant increases in working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the objectives of this study were (1) to be the first to describe how treadmill desks are used when working from home and (2) to describe perceived benefits, motivators, and barriers for treadmill desk use when working from home. Twenty participants who worked from home and used a treadmill desk were interviewed between February 2022 and April 2022. Participants reported using their treadmill desks while completing a variety of work and non-work tasks and experienced physical, mental, social, and work-related perceived benefits. Motivators for use included desires to reduce prolonged sitting and be more active, wanting to be healthier and fitter, tracking and reaching goals like daily step counts, feeling good during use, and to overcome increased sedentary behavior due to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Barriers to use included the type of work being done, physical limitations, accessibility issues, social concerns, and mental barriers. Future research should investigate ways to increase treadmill desk use at home by capitalizing on motivating factors and reducing barriers to use. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41542-023-00144-0.

“Some People Sit, Some People Stand, That’s Just What We Do”: a Qualitative Exploration of Sit-Stand Desk Use in Naturalistic Settings

“…In a study of homeworking (tele-working) university employees, staff spent almost 90% of their working time sitting (Niven et al, 2022) therefore strategies which can be employed to reduce prolonged sitting in the home-working environment are clearly required to reduce sedentary behaviour and associated ill health and disease risk. There has been research exploring the use of treadmill desks when working from home, which reports similar motivators to those found in our study, including an overwhelming desire to sit less and to 'feel healthier' (Scisco et al, 2023). Clearly there are pragmatic limitations to treadmill desks at home, however, another study evaluated the interest and acceptability of low-cost standing desks in the home environment, finding 75% of participants used the desk weekly after four weeks, and at 6 months 30% were still using the desk weekly (Rudecki et al, 2019).…”