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In recent years people have become more health-conscience and focused on their everyday health and wellness regimens.

One aspect of a modern life that hasn’t developed as quickly is office wellness. Many people work 8 or more hours per day, stuck behind a desk and sitting in uncomfortable chairs for extended periods of time. This sedentary lifestyle has been a major contributing factor in many illnesses, aches, and pains in people’s lives.

Luckily, there have been developments in the past 10 years that have begun to transform modern office spaces. And, these changes aren’t limited to the modern Google-like offices, many small and remote offices are also transforming their space to create ergonomic and active workspaces.

With the wide array of products on the market and the number of options available to you, we’d like to show you how you can create the ultimate active work environment to help you stay healthy and conquer your fitness goals!

Our Main Goal

Ok, so let’s first define what we mean when we say, “an active office”. Sometimes there can be confusion between what people consider activity – one person may think that you need to be working hard, maintaining an elevated heart-rate, and really sweating it out to be considered active!

Although this is one way to do it, there are various other, less strenuous activities you can do to engage and work your muscles without having to break a sweat.

The tools listed below, such as the CoreChair, will help you improve your strength, physical fitness, and posture by incorporating subtle movement into your workday. 

So, keep this in mind as we run through our list.

Our Perfect Active Office

1. An Ergonomic Active Sitting Chair

First thing’s first, if you are spending 8 hours a day seated (you really don’t have to by the way, but we’ll get to that next!), you should focus on well-researched ergonomic seating options.

The most common complaint made by office workers is generally related to sore backs, rounded shoulders, and neck pain. These are all common side effects of a poorly designed workstation and office chair. You may notice some people use kneeling chairs, BOSU (stability) balls, and other similar options in order to help with their posture and comfort during the day. However, these options lack proper postural support and can lead to more harm than good. 

An ergonomic active sitting chair like the CoreChair, which is based on the concept of a stability ball, ensures you engage your core and remain active while seated. This is great for two primary reasons, to build strength and stability in your abdominals and core back muscles, and secondly to help increase the number of calories you burn while sitting. The CoreChair also provides optimal postural support and is backed by research, a 8-year warranty, and a 60-day risk-free trial. It is also NEAT Certified by Mayo Clinic and recommended by Chiropractors, Personal Trainers, Surgeons, and other Medical Professionals across North America. 

2. A Standing Desk

We dropped a hint before that one of the keys to an active office is not sitting all the time, and the way to do this is with a standing desk.

There was initially a huge boom when standing desks first appeared on the market, followed by a subsequent mini-backlash of people who didn’t believe that standing all day was good for the body either. Now, it seems people tend to agree that the best way to get the most from a standing desk is using it together with a good, ergonomic chair. Perhaps you can work in 2-hour shifts, alternating between sitting and standing for the best results.

There are so many different types of standing desks, starting with the fully height adjustable ones, which can replace your current office desk, or a more compact standing desk converter which can transform your current desk into an ergonomic adjustable one.

The great thing about a standing desk is that you can use with other products to make it even more active, like some of the products we’ll take a look at below.

3. Balance Board

Like the CoreChair, a balance board is a product designed to help you engage your core. Based on a very similar principle, a balance board uses instability to force the user to engage the core muscles as well as the stabilizing leg muscles.

A balance board works perfectly with a standing desk and many people find them great for upping their level of activity at work.

4. Treadmill Desk

Here’s where we bring the activity levels up a notch! Not too far though, don’t think you’ll be running like Usain Bolt and working at the same time – but a nice steady walk, while you work, is simple and effective.

A treadmill desk is another product that you can use with a standing desk to help up your activity level while working. These treadmill bases are similar to what you would find at the gym, but stripped of the handrails and other bulky parts, leaving you with just the base which can slide in and out from under your desk.

They are generally far less powerful than a regular treadmill and are designed for steady state cardio– basically light walks for long periods. Many people love the benefit of multi-tasking and being able to fit their daily exercise goals and their professional goals into the same 8-hour timeframe.

5. Under Desk Exercise Equipment

There are countless types of under the desk exercise equipment products, such as foot swings, mini-bikes, and ellipticals. The one that we truly like is the Cubii. 

The Cubii is a modern and beautifully designed under-desk elliptical. It is compact and easy to use, and the team at Cubii designed it especially to be used under a desk. You might think that you will bang your knees on the underside of your desk, however, with Cubii’s low profile, this won’t happen. 

In addition, this product works very well together with the CoreChair. You can keep your core engaged and increase the intensity with the elliptical to really activate your muscles head to toe. 

Try it yourself!

So there you have it, a nice simple list of products to make your office more active! And don’t worry, we don’t expect everyone to go out and buy all of these at once, but we do think that if any of these ideas take your fancy it will do you and your body wonders to make these small changes to your work life. 

Lastly, just remember there are also plenty of exercises you can, and should, be doing without needing any equipment! If you need exercise ideas, CoreChair has an excellent variety of workout videos on their YouTube channel

Author Bio

After suffering from many injuries and pains throughout the years, Nick started Painless Movement with the hope of helping others discover ways to live a healthier, happier, and pain-free lives. Although not a doctor or physiotherapist, Nick uses personal trial and error and anecdotal experiences to learn about the body and hopefully provide useful information for others who suffer from similar health issues.

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