Are you tired of feeling sluggish and sedentary during your workday? Do you struggle to find time for exercise amidst a busy schedule? Look no further than under desk exercisers! These compact and convenient devices allow you to get your blood flowing and your muscles moving while sitting at your desk.
Many of us spend a significant portion of our day sitting at a desk, which can lead to a sedentary lifestyle and negative health consequences. And then, finding time to exercise during a busy workday can be a challenge.
That’s where These Under Desk Exercisers come in. These devices are designed to be compact and easy to use while sitting at your desk, allowing you to get some exercise in without interrupting your work.
By pedaling an under desk exerciser, you can increase your blood flow, burn some calories, and improve your overall health and wellbeing. They’re a great option if you just do not have the time or desire to hit the gym before or after work.
Under Desk Exercise Saves Lives
Using a pedal exerciser while you’re working is an excellent way to incorporate more movement and activity into your day for several health benefits:
- Promotes circulation – The pedaling motion engages your legs and lower body muscles, which helps pump blood back towards your heart. This enhances circulation and reduces risk of conditions like blood clots.
- Burns calories – Steady pedaling burns calories, making it easier to maintain or lose weight. The exact amount depends on your resistance level and pedaling intensity. But it can add up over the workday.
- Strengthens legs/core – Pedaling engages multiple lower body muscle groups like quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves. It also requires engaged core muscles to remain upright. So it strengthens legs and core.
- Reduces back pain – Low impact pedaling gently mobilizes the spine and can help reduce stiffness or back pain from prolonged sitting.
- Boosts energy – The light activity can help increase alertness and energy levels, especially during an afternoon slump.
- Relieves stress – The rhythmic motion of pedaling can have a meditative effect, helping you destress.
- Breaks up sitting – Long sedentary periods are associated with increased health risks. Pedaling periodically throughout the day can mitigate this.
So using an under desk pedal machine promotes continuous movement and active sitting, providing meaningful health and productivity benefits. It’s an easy way to get exercise without having to leave your workspace.
Most of us desk jockeys wind up sitting from 8 to 14 hours a day on workdays. We spend a lot of time on our buttocks at the desk, and more during off-hours, and that’s why under desk exercise is crucial.
Does Exercise After Work Make Up For Sitting All Day?
Some of us are under the illusion that exercising after work corrects the problem.
Doing exercise after work can help counteract some of the negative effects of sitting at a desk all day, but it doesn’t completely undo the risks associated with prolonged sitting. Here are a few key points:
- Any physical activity is beneficial – Getting regular exercise, even if just after work, promotes heart health, burns calories, relieves stress, and strengthens muscles and bones. It’s absolutely better than being sedentary.
- But sitting risks remain – Studies show that even people who exercise regularly are still at increased risk for things like obesity, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar if they sit for long periods throughout the day.
- Exercise can’t undo sitting’s effects – Research indicates exercise done before or after prolonged sitting does not fully prevent the vascular, metabolic and musculoskeletal issues associated with too much sitting.
- Best strategy is reducing sitting – The most effective strategy is to break up sitting periods by standing or moving throughout the workday, in addition to exercising later. Even light activity from an under desk exercise bike every 30 minutes provides benefits.
- Consider desk exercises too – Simple desk exercises like stretches, walking breaks, and using a standing desk or under-desk pedaler can complement after work exercise.
After work exercise is great, but should be paired with reducing and breaking up sitting time during the workday for optimal health benefits. A combination approach is ideal.
Here’s the thing: the more technology advances, the more time we spend at a desk. Unless you’ve been under a rock the last few years, you already know all of this desk time is wrecking our health. In fact, it is taking years off of our lives.
How Bad is Sitting at a Desk All Day?
Sitting at a desk all day can be quite bad for your health. Prolonged periods of sitting decrease blood circulation, limit calorie burn, reduce metabolism, increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes, and contribute to stiff joints and muscle tightness.
It also takes a toll mentally, as sitting for hours on end can increase feelings of boredom, restlessness, and fatigue. Breaking up desk time with short bouts of activity like standing or walking can mitigate some of these effects.
But the consensus among health experts is that excessive sitting without intermittent movement negatively impacts the cardiovascular system, musculoskeletal system, metabolic processes, and overall wellbeing.
The human body is designed for regular movement, so sitting for most of the day goes against our physiology. Making a conscious effort to incorporate more activity by using a standing desk, an under desk pedal exerciser, taking active breaks, exercising before/after work, and reducing time spent sedentary can help counteract the risks of prolonged sitting.
But sitting at a desk all day, every day, is fundamentally not great for short term or long term health.
Not Me. I Exercise Most Days of the Week.
Yes, I am sure you do, and that’s a good thing. The problem with exercise on cardio machines after work, though, is that it has almost no bearing on all the time spent sitting at a desk.
It’s true! Sitting at a desk means poor blood circulation at the time—not when you are standing. Even wiggling around under the desk trying to get comfortable isn’t enough muscle activation to stir up much metabolism.
And it takes muscle activation to promote circulation, proper breathing, and calorie burn. The fact is, we were designed and built to stand up for most of the day. Sitting for so many hours each day can have a terrible effect on our bodies over time. And to tell you the truth, it doesn’t take long?
How Sitting at a Desk 8 Hours a Day Affects Your Body
- Cardiovascular system. Because we were built to stand up, the heart and cardiovascular system is designed to work best when you’re standing. Your bowels and internal organs work more effectively with upright motion and activity.
- Legs and buttock muscles Leg muscles from your waist down are the largest muscles of the body, and your circulatory system depends on their activity to pump blood effectively.
- Digestion, Energy, and sugar levels The action of muscles moving activates your entire body. The movement of muscles, which is exercise, causes your body to digest food and control sugar levels. Spending most of your day sitting with no physical activity during that time makes it extremely difficult to control your weight.
- Lower Back and Hips. Office workers often suffer from back and hip problems and can’t really figure out why. More often than not, the culprit is hip flexor problems from the inaction of legs under the desk for long periods of time. Staying in the sitting position for hours at a time shortens these muscles, leading to skeletal misalignment and pain.
- Varicose Veins. Blood naturally pools in your feet and legs under the desk. Most people wind up with varicose veins as a result. Even though varicose veins are not necessarily dangerous, most people do not like the look of them.
- Poor Posture. Bad posture is a definite cause of stiff necks and shoulder pain. I don’t know about you, but sitting in an office chair makes it hard for me to keep from slouching over my computer.
How to Stay Healthy and Active With A Desk Job
And lucky for all of us, there are remedies such as:
1. Get Up Every Hour
Searching the web will soon lead you to pages stating that getting up from your desk and walking around the office every hour is a great solution. But is it? Not so much, really, and I’ll explain why.
- Few people are going to do it. I mean, working in an office full of people with quotas and deadlines to fulfill makes it difficult to set a timer and stop everything while you exercise.
- Fewer bosses and supervisors will accept it.
- Even though there are a lot of office exercises you can do for 5 minutes every hour away from your desk, it’s hard to refocus when you sit down again.
- Getting up every hour is not the real solution to the problem because the moment you sit down, body functions slow down again. So just like exercise at home has no effect on time spent sitting, exercise away from the desk has little effect on time spent sitting.
2. Exercise More After Business Hours
I spend my life trying to convince people how important exercise is to there health and well being. So, believe me, I know exercise is a critical element of living your best life. But, does exercise at the gym or walking after work help with the issues of sitting at work?
Exercising after work or before work does wonders for things like heart health, reducing pain, keeping your body flexible, increasing energy levels, strengthening muscles and bones, burning calories for weight loss, and a lot more.
Not so much as you might expect? The problem lies in your muscles not activating while you are there with your feet under the desk. It’s during these motionless and inactive hours that your body all but shuts down. Blood circulation is limited, to say the least, and you are burning about 1 calorie every hour.
And Then You Cancel Out The Effects and Benefits With 8 Hours at the Desk!
3. Quit Your Job
I had to mention this as a remedy because most of us would quit doing things that damage our health this much. The fact is, once I realized this was the source of a lot of my own ailments, I seriously considered finding another career that didn’t involve so much sitting.
However, I know that some of us love what we do, and some of us are financially bound to our present jobs. And lucky for us, there is a fourth remedy that’s inexpensive and actually works to reverse the negative health effects of a desk job.
Here’s the thing: When you exercise your legs, you activate the largest muscle groups in your body.
You can’t very well do pushups or lift weights while doing anything at your desk. But you can put your legs into action to drastically improve your overall health, and even lose weight while working at your computer. And it’s done with exercise equipment you use under your desk!
4. The Perfect Solution is An Under Desk Exercise Machine
This is the perfect alternative and solution to a myriad of health problems right at work—while you are working. A pedal exerciser under a standard office, or cubicle, desk can literally change your life. Instead of raising your risk of disease and early death at work, exercise equipment for your desk will lower risk and raise health levels.
Silently, unobtrusively, and unconsciously pedaling along with your feet under the desk will help lower cholesterol and triglycerides, burn far more calories than merely sitting all day, and dramatically increase your focus. You will see your flexibility and endurance levels increase like never before with a desk bike.
Sure, there is a sheer multitude of gadgets advertised as desk exercise equipment. Theyclaim to increase your health at work. But the vast majority of those items require you to stop what you are doing on the computer to exercise. Furthermore, they create very little overall muscle action, and burn no more calories than you were burning to begin with.
All research has proven that the best exercises for improving and maintaining health are workouts that include using your legs. Exercises like walking, running, swimming, cycling, tennis, and jumping rope always top the list because they are heart-pumping endeavors.
Under Desk Exercise Exercise Keeps You Healthy
Not only do you not pedal as fast as you can, but it’s also advised to pedal slowly and steadily with little resistance. Pedaling like this with your under desk bike keeps everything in your body activated without a thought from you. The best equipment makes so little noise that you or your co-workers will never hear it or know you are steadily increasing your health at work.
Just think: doctors and researchers now recommend a minimum of 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of exercise a week to stay fit. With your own office exercise equipment, you will easily get five times the recommended minimum.
Summary
Nobody can deny that sitting at a computer for 8 or more hours a day isn’t conducive to the best health, and most agree it’s a real killer. Researchers are now saying desk jobs are the equivalent of smoking, or worse, when it comes to health risks.
Sitting is making us fat, increasing the risk of early death to as high as 40%, causing muscular disorders, chronic back pain with headaches, and increasing the risk of some cancers, including colon cancer.
Now Think About This:
All of that can be avoided — while actually lowering all of those risk below the national average for anyone — just by using under desk exercise equipment.