An under desk bike is a new equipment for people at work. If you wonder do desk bikes actually work, let’s take a closer look to this type of bike, its upsides and downsides in this article with FittingChairs.
What Is a Desk Bike?
A desk bike is a bike or bicycle created for you to use while sitting. Its structure includes two pedals, a tension controlling knob, a display showing how quick you are pedaling, how far you have pedaled as well as how many calories you have burned.
You can call it by other names such as desk cycle, under the desk cycle, under desk bike, portable pedal machines and so on.
Office workers usually use it to exercise while working.
This type of bike is also effective for those who have problems getting up out of their chairs. With this under desk bike, you can ride it easily without spending too much strength.
It can not replace gym completely but is still a good way to do exercises while you’re at work.
Benefits of An Under Desk Bike
Let’s explore some benefits of an under desk bike.
Better Blood Flow
An under desk bike can help you stay active while sitting at a desk to work. You just need to put your feet on the pedals to relieve the stress from the back of your legs. While you are pedaling, oxygenated blood will flow to all of your leg muscles, fostering the total blood flow in your body.
Pedaling also boosts circulation by raising your heart rate. This can help to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Release Endorphins
Endorphin is a feel-good hormone produced in our bodies. It can ease the pain and stress and therefore lift up our mood. It also can increase our energy level and enhance the quality of our sleep.
Using an under desk bike can produce endorphins because when we do exercise and move around, this hormone will be released.
After each 30 minutes of sitting at a desk to work, try going around in your office, going up and down the stairs. These actions can help you feel better. If you don’t want to do those, using an under desk is a good alternative.
Impacts on Cognitive Performance
You don’t need to pedal all day long. With only a short time of pedaling, endorphins can be released, making you feel happier and this will contribute to your productivity.
Strengthen Your Legs
When you sit at a desk to work most of the day, muscles of your legs don’t get enough exercises and they can become weak.
Under desk bikes can support you to get these muscles worked and then help to strengthening your legs day by day. Using them is not hard at all. You just need to pedal at a moderate speed, as long as you feel comfortable. After a time, maybe 2 to 3 days, you can notice your legs are becoming stronger.
Help Ease Stiffness
Sitting for too long and not moving at all can make your muscles stiff. Using an under desk bike can give a low-impact to your legs and even the whole body.
Your muscles and joints will be more active and they will become healthier.
Modify Resistance to Fit Your Goals
Under desk bikes are portable, they are small and can be used at anywhere. They can also be modified to fit your goals.
You can customize your workout to fit your wanted exercise level by modifying the resistance on your desk bike.
Combining exercises while working is good but you don’t need to focus too much on exercises. The more important thing is the work. If you push yourself too hard on using the under desk bike, it might cause some negative effects.
Boost Your Metabolism
Another benefits of under desk bike is boosting your metabolism. When you ride a bike, you burn calories, that is an obvious thing.
When you burn calories, you can lose weight. Burning calories also can promote the working process of digestive system or in other words, the metabolism.
Help You Stay Warm
Using desk bikes can also help to keep you warm in the office. As we have explained, riding it burns calories and you will feel warm and hot since your muscles have to work.
Pedaling in a few minutes on difficulty level 3 or 4 can help to raise your body temperature significantly.
Reduce Risk for Type 2 Diabetes
And riding a desk bike or any type of bikes can help to lower the risk of getting Type 2 diabetes.
A desk bike provides a bunch of benefits for our health and reducing the chance of getting Type 2 diabetes is not an exception.
Under Desk Bike Drawbacks
However, everything has two sides. In other words, nothing is perfect. Now let’s turn to some drawbacks of desk bikes.
It Might Be Distracting for Some People
Desk bikes can lift up your emotional mood and have a particular impact on your working performance since it helps to increase your physical condition like the blood flow. However, it can become counterproductive sometimes.
Using a desk bike while working is like you are multi-tasking at the same time. Therefore, it might be hard to focus on both two things you are doing 100%.
Your brain has to think of dealing with the work and pedaling at the same time, which is not a simple thing. Some people can feel uncomfortable when they have to do many things at once and they are easily distracted from doing any of those.
It Might Disrupt Your Workflow
A desk bike might disrupt your workflow if you do not know how to set it up to not conflict to other equipment.
For instance, the swivel base of your chair might bump into the desk bike.
You might not reach your keyboard and mouse at ease when you stretch out your legs to use the pedals of desk bike.
You might got your knees bumped into the desk’s edges.
Those are some situations which can disrupt your workflow.
Physically Taxing
Doing anything too much is never good. If you use a desk bike the whole day, you will feel tired. You might even suffer from sore legs.
Desk bikes might make you feel hot and sweat in the office. If your office does not have air conditioners or the ventilation system is not effective, sweating is definitely not a pleasant thing.
How Long Should You Use A Biking Desk Per Day?
A study has pointed out that pedaling in around 23 minutes per day can help people who work desk jobs improve their health.
You can burn more calories if you spend more time pedaling.
For those who are overweight, spending 50 minutes pedaling a day can help burn about 107 calories without worrying about muscle pain and discomfort.
Are Under Desk Bikes A Good Workout?
Using under desk bikes can burn your calories.
How many calories you can burn depends on your own body weight.
A person whose weight is 125 pounds can burn around 210 calories for 30 minutes of using desk bikes. Of course, the more time you spend on the desk bike, the more calories you can burn.
Under desk bikes can help burn calories and they are good for your health. But to call them alternatives for workouts at gym, it seems to be hard.
Who Should Use Desk Bikes?
Anyone can use under desk bikes. However, this bike is created mainly for people spending many hours sitting at a desk to work so it is the ultimate option for these people.
Sitting for too long can result in neck and back pain and other healthy issues.
Using desk bikes can offer some movement and exercises to improve blood flow.
No matter you work in an office or at your own home, it is totally possible for you to use desk bikes as long as you have enough space to put it.
Desk Bikes Can Work Well with Adjustable Height Desks?
If your working desk is not high enough, the chance is you have to sit in a weird position to work and use the desk bike. Or else your knees will touch the underside of the desk.
The solution is you need to have a chair or desk whose height can be adjusted.
You can change the height so your knees will not touch the desk at all. You will have enough space to move your legs freely and comfortably.
You can measure the height of pedal and stroke length to know how high a unit will raise your knees while pedaling.
For almost every desk bikes, you will need 4 to 6 inches of addition above your knees to make sure you won’t touch the underside of your desk while using under desk bikes.
How to Buy A Desk Bike?
To pick a good and suitable desk bike for your own, these are some questions you should consider to find their answers.
- Can it work well with the chair?
- Is it ergonomic?
- Does it fit under your desk?
- Do your knees touch the tabletop or the edges?
- Is it easy for you to pedal under the desk?
- Can you move it easily?
- Does it offer a built-in monitor to keep track of the burned calories?
- Does it stay put while you pedal?
- Does it allow you to adjust the monitor height and typing angle?
In summary, FittingChairs hope this post will come in handy for you when you need to buy an under desk bike and wonder do desk bikes actually work. Follow us to read more helpful tips for working both in an office and from home.
