Sunday, June 12, 2011

Stand in the Place Where You Work

You really need to get rid of your office chair.

I don't know how many times I've written about this subject, but I'm sure it's gotta be at least three times, including here, here, and here. Recently, the New York Times Magazine published a long piece on the perils of staying planted on your butt all day. And if that weren't enough to get you on your feet, this infographic made the rounds last month, too:


This stuff's important, yo.

I've been using a standing desk at work for a little over a year. Rather than waiting for my employer to provide an adjustable-height desk (which would've required an ergonomic assessment first), I bought thirty bucks worth of stuff at IKEA and Home Depot and cobbled together a little platform to elevate my keyboard and monitor.

Here's my set-up:


Plenty of other CrossFit Palo Alto members have standing desks, too.

This one belongs to the Terminator:


Don't let the family photo fool you; he's still a relentless cyborg killer from the future.

The Terminator and me aren't the only 5 a.m. nutjobs with a standing desk. J-Ho's looks like this:



He works with the Terminator -- hence the similar style of standing desks. But J-Ho rocks TWO computer monitors simultaneously AND a CrossFit-style whiteboard. Take that, robot!

Blake's spending the summer in SoCal, but even though his office is temporary, he's already put together his own makeshift standing desk:

Clearly, it ain't hard to ditch your chair in favor of a standing desk. You can MacGyver one together pretty easily. Looks like Blake used letter trays, but you could just as easily use a stack of phone books, a cardboard box or a milk crate.

Anyone else got photos of standing desks to share? Send 'em to me by the end of the month and I'll post them up. (Yes, I'm blatantly ripping off John Durant's Upright Citizen feature, only I'm putting a whole lot less effort into it.)

Plus, if I manage to get my shit together, I'll even randomly select one of you for a prize of some kind. Maybe a shirt? Still working on a design for a "FITBOMB" tee so that I can wear it around the house and bask in my own glory, but it'll probably look something like this:

What do you say? Get a standing desk already!