An increase of physical activity in the workplace could have very positive consequences for the health of office workers, according to research preformed by ASU doctoral student Zachary Zeigler.
Zeigler, who began studying the topic of workplace exercise as part of his master’s thesis, said his findings proved that simply walking at one mile per hour behind a desk while working, instead of sitting behind a desk, could significantly lower blood pressure.
“If our population changed to make our jobs more active, if we saw that kind of reduction on a population basis, we could reduce rates for stroke and cardiovascular events by 10 to 12 percent,” he said. “On a population basis, that would be pretty successful.”
Although his research focused solely on the short-term benefits of such a change, he said the potential long-term benefits of more active offices could be revolutionary in a country where obesity and related health problems are often described as an epidemic.
TrekDesks, the machines that Zeigler has been using for his research, are an innovative combination between a treadmill and a traditional desk on which users can work and walk.
After eight TrekDesks were donated to ASU, Zeigler began using them to measure the effects of mild exercise on blood pressure throughout the course of a normal workday, which he simulated in his lab.
ASU exercise and wellness professor Pamela Swan, who was Zeigler’s master’s thesis advisor and is currently his doctoral advisor, has kept a close eye on this research since it began.
Swan said it’s rare for a master’s thesis to be published in an academic journal, but Zeigler’s research was revelatory and thorough enough to earn the respect of the scientific community.
Already available online, it will be published on paper in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health in June 2015.
His research won the Gail Butterfield Award from the Southwest American College of Sports Medicine in 2012.
“His research is exceptional, because it shows for the first time that this very easy kind of exercise, which is hardly exercise at all, because it’s just typing standing up and walking very slowly, can actually make a big difference in somebody’s health,” Swan said.
TrekDesk founder and CEO Steve Bordley, who lives in Scottsdale, donated TrekDesks to ASU and a number of other universities around the country in order to obtain good evidence of his product’s health benefits.
He said this desire for good evidence stemmed from his product’s initial rejection by companies he thought would be eager to employ it as preventative medicine.
Bordley said one thing that frustrated him when he got started was the false impression that chief medical officers of companies would want to get their employees "up and moving" in order to decrease preventable diseases.
“What I found was that they didn’t care, and when I did get a hold of them, all they said was, ‘Give me hierarchical evidence specific to the TrekDesk,’” he said.
Bordley now has solid, product-specific evidence of the TrekDesk’s health benefits, thanks to Zeigler and other student researchers, but he said he still doubts it will make a significant difference in the eyes of the aforementioned chief medical officers.
He does plan to use the new data to promote the TrekDesk, however, as it will surely raise public interest in his product.
“What I’m really pleased about is that all of this research is done at the highest professional standard, and every one of (the researchers) is going down a different road with it, but it’s all ending up in the same place,” he said.
Reach the reporter at megann.phillips@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @megannphillips
