Moving desk encourages office exercise

The Stir Kinetic Desk automatically rises and falls to force workers to regularly stand up and stretch their muscles.

We recently wrote about FwdHealth, a platform that helps to track office workers exercise to bring down health insurance premiums. Now we’ve come across another device that encourages physical activity in the workplace, in the form of the Stir Kinetic Desk, which automatically rises and falls to force workers to regularly stand up and stretch their muscles.

Minimally designed to improve productivity, the desk also features an embedded touchscreen that controls motors in its legs, which in turn determine the table’s elevation. Users can either manually adjust the height of the desk when they want to stand up by double-tapping the screen, or set the computer to automatically raise and lower the table at regular intervals. At the end of the day, the display shows the user how many calories they’ve burned by performing the simple exercise. The desk also senses when it’s being used and learns users’ daily routine to improve the effectiveness of its height adjustments. To top things off, integrated AC and USB power outlets to ensure uninterrupted productivity. The video below explains more about the product:

In today’s office culture, sitting is the most predominant activity in workers’ lives, and prolonged periods of bad posture can lead to serious back problems and even diabetes. According to the desk’s developers — who come from creative environments such as Apple, Ideo, NASA and Disney — working with adjustable desks also improves focus and creativity. How else can offices be configured to induce regular breaks from sitting?

Spotted by Murray Orange, written by Springwise