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A standing desk for $22

iamnotaprogrammer.com

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Re: A standing desk for $22

#81
post #36

There is a hilarious amount of Silicon Valley culture in the organization of this article. Particularly in pimping your biggest name early adopters. "Oh, someone from Stripe is using it! I'll bite!"

Hehehe, in this case, allow me to plug my own $0 standing desk blog post here - there's also a fair bit of SV culture in it. And pentalobular screws. http://gregschlom.com/post/4555981908/standing-desk

Bonus = built in wrist rests!

Re: A standing desk for $22

#82
post #49

The article he cites on the dangers of prolonged sitting is about research on prolonged sitting. That is indeed bad for you. However, so is prolonged standing. You are best off, and you can save $22, by keeping your normal desk and GETTING UP every 20 minutes or so and moving around. This avoids the problems with prolonged sitting, without incurring the serious risks of prolonged standing. See: http://ergo.human.corn…

Getting up to move around every 20 minutes will quickly turn a 5-person office into a mess. Now imagine a space shared by 50 or 100 people. This is completely unrealistic.

Is this supposed to matter? If it's important for human health to get up and walk around every 20 minutes, and not to stand all day, what do I care about the design of the space I'm in?

Re: A standing desk for $22

#83

I used to be an advocate of the standing desk. I bought an adjustable-height Fredrik workstation from Ikea, tried multiple heights to find the most comfortable, and stuck with it for six months. It didn't work. Even after months of practice, I found it harder to concentrate while standing and doing it any longer than a few hours would invariably result in back pain. I found myself turning to "sitting tasks" like movi…

Standing or sitting, I reduced upper and lower back pain with one of these: http://epicself.com/move/roll-it-out-upper-back/

Re: A standing desk for $22

#84

I spent $1,100 on a GeekDesk max (including shipping). An investment in my health was long overdue, especially since I've spent $4-5,000 on my computer setup. The huge benefit is not having to move all your stuff whenever you're done sitting or standing. I press a button and in 10 seconds it's changed height. MAGIC! I highly suggest them to anyone, just watch out for the long backorder. Mine took 3 months to get here…

I'm not against the concept of "investing in your health". That said, while there have of course been studies that show sitting isn't so hot for your health, have there been studies that actually show standing desks are good ? Varicose veins are not high on my list of to-dos, you know.

It seems that the important part is that you're moving throughout the day. Personally, when I'm switching between standing and sitting throughout the day I have more energy and tend to move around a lot more. If I didn't do this, I'd end up sitting for periods of 4+ hours at a time.

As a CTO I manage development and technology for the company, which means I'm up and around the office (and out) for meetings and touching base with other departments. If I were an engineer I'd likely utilize a standing desk less. I personally don't enjoy coding standing up.

Re: A standing desk for $22

#85
post #56
post #49

The article he cites on the dangers of prolonged sitting is about research on prolonged sitting. That is indeed bad for you. However, so is prolonged standing. You are best off, and you can save $22, by keeping your normal desk and GETTING UP every 20 minutes or so and moving around. This avoids the problems with prolonged sitting, without incurring the serious risks of prolonged standing. See: http://ergo.human.corn…

Nobody I know is capable of standing for an entire workday. A drafting stool is absolutely required, and it's often the trickiest part of the configuration; for men taller than six feet, it's very difficult to find an inexpensive drafting stool that is sufficiently tall to match the height of your desk. [1] e.g., http://www.amazon.com/Boss-Drafting-Stool-Foot-Black/dp/B001...

abossy, have you tried this drafting stool? Id love to hear somebodys feedback before spending $100 on a non-returnable furniture..

Re: A standing desk for $22

#86

I used to be an advocate of the standing desk. I bought an adjustable-height Fredrik workstation from Ikea, tried multiple heights to find the most comfortable, and stuck with it for six months. It didn't work. Even after months of practice, I found it harder to concentrate while standing and doing it any longer than a few hours would invariably result in back pain. I found myself turning to "sitting tasks" like movi…

6'0" and 130 lbs is quite underweight. You have very little muscle and I am not surprised by the back pain. You need to gain about 25 pounds of muscle and then consider a standing desk. You need to hit the weights and fridge really hard for about 6-18 months.

Seconded, as someone formerly 6' 130lb, and a frequent back pain sufferer (partially due to injury). I started doing weightlifting about a year ago, and deadlifts in particular made the pain virtually disappear as well as improving many other areas of my life. I found that it very quickly helped my back, even in a couple weeks.

Re: A standing desk for $22

#87
Do you mind sharing how stable that configuration is? (Both the monitor and keyboard)

I've found one difficulty with even moderately nice standing desks (i.e., a Herman Miller desk) is that they vibrate quite noticeably when being typed upon. Combine this with an adjustable monitor (read: easier to customize, more expensive, and shakier) and you get quite an annoying result.

Re: A standing desk for $22

#88

I used to be an advocate of the standing desk. I bought an adjustable-height Fredrik workstation from Ikea, tried multiple heights to find the most comfortable, and stuck with it for six months. It didn't work. Even after months of practice, I found it harder to concentrate while standing and doing it any longer than a few hours would invariably result in back pain. I found myself turning to "sitting tasks" like movi…

You need to do a combination of sitting and standing. I ran into the same problems you did when first trying out a standing desk for about a year. I went back to sitting for a year, and then finally invested in a motorized desk (geekdesk.com) to get the best of both worlds and I couldn't be happier now. When I'm sick of standing, I sit. When I can't stand sitting, I stand.

Re: A standing desk for $22

#89
I got really lucky. having just moved to alameda from SF, into a house 3 times as big as my apartment, I had very little furniture to fill out my new place.

The neighbor across the street was having a garage sale and I bought two adjustable height desks from him for $200, one of which is an electric raise-lower desk!

I feel so lucky as I have wanted one forever, but couldn't afford one... now I have one!

Re: A standing desk for $22

#90
I did something similar, except I used old cardboard boxes I found around my house. In the end, I gave it up. My neck and shoulders felt good, but I could feel the blood pooling up in my legs and feet. It just wasn't comfortable. I think some sort of hybrid standing/sitting position would be ideal.
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