in their days. Often, this is no easy task! Now, if the average person
sleeps 7.5 hours per night, that leaves potentially 16.5 hours, or as
I like to think of it, almost 1,000 minutes to complete 30 minutes of
exercise (minimum recommended daily amount by the American
College of Sports Medicine). So technically, I’m asking for a mere
3% commitment of their awake time to complete exercise/physical
activity – not a big ask by any means.
However, when you hear the patient describe their day, up at
6am, get the kids ready for school, then go off to work, then home
to shuttle the kids to karate lessons, music lessons, gymnastics
lessons, after school tutoring, all of which require a high degree of
chauffer work (aka sedentary time). Then it’s home for dinner, school
work with the kids, bath time, and suddenly that 30 minutes exercise
time I’m requesting of them is looking like a big ask... But there is
one time during most people’s weekdays when, if all else fails, the
patients can complete exercise, and that is at work. This leads us to
the topic of this Research Review, and I must declare that although
I am an alumnus of Oregon State University, that had no influence
whatsoever on selecting this article: good research is good research.
Dr Schuna and his colleagues initially discuss the increased risk of
obesity, cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular-related mortality
(i.e. deaths attributed to cardiovascular disease) associated with
sedentary behaviour. Other chronic diseases attributed to sedentary
behaviour includes type 2 diabetes and certain cancers. The authors
then state that a substantial portion of the sedentary behaviour
occurs in the workplace where most workers spend an average of
8 hours (or more) a day for 5 days each week. The focus, naturally
enough therefore, turns to the concept of office-based exercise.
The researchers actually designed a very novel study in which
they compared the metabolic costs (VO2, HR, energy expenditure)
for study participants at rest (not that you’re actually resting while
at work); while seated and typing; while using a stationary foot
cycle and typing (a concept discussed in a past Network Research
Review, ‘Paid to exercise at work: does this make you a ‘professional
exerciser?'); and while using a treadmill desk and typing. All
If the average person sleeps
7.5 hours per night that leaves
potentially 16.5 hours to complete
30 minutes of exercise
participants were instructed to self-select
their exercise intensity, and completed each
of the four settings. Both the cycling and
walking exercise was self-selected by the
participant; however, they were required to
keep typing while completing the exercise.
Typing performance was assessed using
typing performance software. All data was
collected for 10 minutes at each station.
Results: A total of 16 volunteers (8 men
and 8 women) with a mean age of 34 years
participated in the study. The average pedal
rate was just below 50rpms (ranged from
20 to 100rpms) while the cycling power
output was low at an average of 18watts.
The average treadmill walking speed was
also low, at 2.1km/h, with no difference in
walking speed between men and women.
With regard to oxygen consumption, seated
rest was the lowest averaging 3.6ml/kg/
min (roughly 1 MET). The highest oxygen
consumptions were seen, not surprisingly,
with typing while exercising on the treadmill
(approximately 10ml/kg/min): the typing
while cycling was approximately 7% lower.
With regard to heart rate, the lowest was
seen at rest, approximately 65bpm, while the
highest was seen with treadmill walking at
approximately 79bpm (approximately 42%
of the participants age-predicted maximal
heart rate). Cycling while typing was slightly
lower, with an average heart rate of 75bpm.
Caloric expenditure was the highest, with
typing while treadmill walking followed
closely by typing while cycling at their desk.
With regard to typing performance, men
typed the slowest while simultaneously
treadmill walking and the fastest during
pedal desk typing. Women had similar
results, with their slowest typing rates during
seated typing and treadmill walking and the
fastest rates during pedal desk typing. With
regard to accuracy, the highest was during
seated typing for men and pedal desk typing
for women.
The authors concluded that the self-
selected exercise (treadmill and cycle) had
substantially higher energy expenditures
as compared to traditional office seated
typing, and this ranged from a 1.8 to a 2.3-
fold increase.
NETWORK AUTUMN 2019 | 35