Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were paid to walk 8-10 hours a day to improve your health, lose weight and build strong, beautiful leg muscles? Male and female alike realize the best way to tone their legs is to stay out of the chair and walk as much as possible but in today’s work environment we are either at our desk or in our cars. Most employees achieve less than 25% of the minimum recommended 10,000 daily steps advised by the Surgeon General.
Pardon the pun, but there is a way to gain a leg up on this predicament: using a desk. Your legs will feel and look stronger once the office chair is replaced with a treadmill desk. Imagine being able to burn 800-1600 calories a day (without sweating) and walking 5-12 miles while completing normal office duties. Treadmill desks allow just that.
Sound incredible? It is already being done in offices throughout the country. Corporations as large as GlaxoSmithKline, Mutual of Omaha, Humana and Best Buy have offered treadmill desks to their employees realize there are health and productivity benefits in allowing employees to walk all day at their desks.
Will women’s leg muscles get too large walking all day? Absolutely not. First, women do not possess the same amount of testosterone in their bodies as men, necessary for large increases in muscle mass. Second, walking at slow speeds with a treadmill desk engages slow twitch muscles (extremely efficient at burning fat).
Do you need to walk all day to see a benefit? No, not at all though obviously the more you walk the better for your health. It would take approximately 2.5-3 hours on a treadmill desk to achieve the Surgeon General’s daily guideline of 10,000 steps assuming that was all the activity you engaged in for the day. However, for most of us even an hour spent daily with a treadmill desk would have a tremendous impact on our health assisting in disease prevention, increases in mood and productivity and overall weight loss.
The facts are clear in all of the studies and reports on the amazing benefits of walking. Walking prevents disease, increases productivity, promotes weight loss, improves mood, boost the brain and now there is solid evidence that walking increases lifespan.