If building a desk around a treadmill seems a little dramatic (and expensive), today’s featured workspace sports a miniature stair stepper for inexpensive at-your-desk exercise.
Lifehacker reader Emily wrote in and shared her “Step-puter” setup with us:
I’m too poor and have too little space for a treadmill to be an option for me, but about three months ago I did make the transition to a standing desk. As Gina Trapani described, standing all day encouraged me to fidget and wiggle, and I loved the way it felt to be moving. I started imagining how great it would be if I had something like a stair master in front of the desk, but small, and preferably self-powered.
One day (an embarrassing number of weeks later) I Googled it, and discovered that “mini-steppers“. They’re cheap, too: I paid $US90 retail, including tax and extended warranty. The whole thing has a footprint of about 1.5 square feet. Since it doesn’t drive itself, I’m able to step a lot when I want, and less or not at all when I start to get hot and sweaty. I entertain myself by imagining that I’m surfing the web while simultaneously climbing the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan.
It’s worth noting that while you can get mini-steppers really cheap (in the $US30-40 range), buying a nicer one (in the $US70-100 range) is probably a wiser investment if you’ll be stepping away on it all day long. Emily’s setup is a great compromise in the space and money saving department and her setup shouldn’t be hard to emulate for anyone wanting to follow her lead.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.