But when I see an under-desk treadmill, I also remember when we all swore that replacing our desk chairs with yoga balls would change our lives. Or that a standing desk, or a balance board, or some kind of pedaling contraption would do the same. In other words, nothing ever changes. I'm not denying that there's a problem with fully sedentary work days; it's just that no one gadget ever seems to be the solution. And the problem isn't that we lack willpower or that the products are inherently flawed. The problem is that we're buying solutions to the wrong problem.
"I think these products can and do work for some people, but there's an important caveat: there's no replacement for actually getting away from your desk for a mental and physical break," says Jen Fisher, formerly the chief wellbeing officer at Deloitte. "There's a real irony here—these products aim to solve one problem (sedentary behavior) but reinforce another (never truly disconnecting from work)."
You might think that if anyone could make office fitness gadgets work, it would be Google—a company famous for its wellness perks and campus amenities. But even there, this pattern persists. "I love the treadmill desks that we have available whenever I've used them," says Shosh Brodman, a senior Google Workspace program manager with over 13 years at the company. "But I think I've used it maybe less than five times." Brodman's experience with an under-desk pedaling device was similar: initial excitement followed by abandonment.
Fitness gadgets become another source of anxiety
The fitness gadget industrial complex has convinced us that the path to wellness is paved with data, tracking, and technology. But for many people, these tools become yet another thing to feel bad about.
This points to a pattern many of us recognize: the sleep tracker that made us more anxious about sleep, the step counter that turned movement into a guilt-inducing scorecard. Tools are only useful if they nudge us toward feeling better, rather than becoming another metric of inadequacy.
Here's what makes our gadget obsession even more frustrating: We already know what works, but we just don't want to hear it, because it requires actually stepping away from work. "It's very American to think we don't need breaks," Painter says. Trapped in non-stop productivity culture, we fall prey to this idea that "wellness" requires an enormous amount of time and money. We live in a culture that treats rest as laziness and breaks as luxuries.
Fitness gadgets around the office allow us to maintain this idea that we can always be productive without any downtime. As if our bodies are just machines that need the right accessories to run indefinitely. We'd rather invest in expensive gadgets that let us keep working than accept that you might need to actually stop and rest. As a result, most of us end the workday feeling overwhelmed, fatigued, nowhere near the end of our to-do lists, and nowhere close to wanting to go to the gym.
How to actually prioritize your wellness at work
The irony is that the effective solutions are free and simple—they just require us to challenge the "always on" culture we've normalized.
There's no need to swear off all office fitness products. Standing desks with decent ergonomics have real value for shifting body position throughout the day. If you genuinely use that balance board or under-desk elliptical regularly for passive tasks, and it's in addition to real breaks, keep at it.
Set actual boundaries around breaks. Block time for a real lunch away from your desk. Schedule walking meetings. Stand up and stretch between Zoom calls. These sound obvious because they are, but we skip them because we've internalized the message that real breaks are indulgent.
Start absurdly small. You don't need a $1,500 treadmill desk. You need to get up once an hour and walk to the window. Water a plant, step outside for a coffee, or try to touch your toes.
The bottom line
The treadmill desk isn't evil. It's just a symptom of our broader refusal to accept that rest is productive, and that being fully present for our work sometimes means being fully absent from our screens.
So before you click "buy" on that under-desk elliptical, ask yourself: Am I solving my sedentariness problem, or am I buying permission to never truly step away from work? Because if it's the latter, you already know where it's going to end up—right next to that dusty yoga ball in the corner.
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