Building a new treadmill desk setup for 2025
I’m writing this article at 2.6 miles per hour.
Fifteen years ago(!), I wrote an article for Macworld about upgrading to a standing desk. Many studies warn of the negative health impacts of sitting all day long.
After about a year of standing, I upgraded to a treadmill desk (and of course, I wrote about that for Macworld, too.) I used that setup for years. I reviewed expensive, Bluetooth-enabled treadmill desks. And then eventually, I found I was on phone and video calls all day long, and it was increasingly difficult to tread for any significant amount of time. I switched back to merely standing. And then, eventually, the pull of gravity reduced me back to sitting.
But now I’m back, baby. I took 23,000 steps yesterday, and I’ll likely exceed that number today.
One step at a time
A year or so ago, a local friend of mine named Anthony posted on Instagram about having lost 20 or so pounds while working with a (remote) trainer. I commented to congratulate him. Minutes later, at most, that trainer slid into my direct messages: Did I have belly fat I wanted to shed, too? Let’s set up a call.
Whoa there, trainer man. You don’t know me. I ignored the message and kept living my life. But this past November, when Anthony shared that he was down 90 pounds, I felt inspired. I wrote to that same trainer, and started working with him. I’ve been making steady progress.
I’d been averaging roughly 5000 steps per day. I work from home. When my trainer mentioned that I could accelerate my weight loss if I got more steps, I knew I didn’t have more time to dedicate to workouts than I was already doing. I don’t feel like I have time to inject outdoor walks into my day right now. But I remembered my treadmill desks. In fact, I still had my treadmill desk in storage.
So I dug it out and turned it on. Like me, it hadn’t aged too gracefully. So I freecycled the old treadmill and bought a walking pad from Amazon.
Walking the walk
Wow, have the prices on treadmills for treadmill desk usage come down. I owned a $700 one; I reviewed $1000+ ones for Macworld back in the day. Today, you can find treadmills for under-desk usage for less than $250, with some costing barely more than $100.
What makes a treadmill good for desk use? Typically, it won’t have the standard hand railings (since those wouldn’t fit under your desk). It will prioritize a quiet motor. And the maximum speed will top out far slower than a traditional treadmill. Wirecutter has recommendations that didn’t speak to me. I ended up going with a highly-rated Sperax Treadmill. It includes a remote that I never use, and I actually keep its foldable handrails up; my height and desk are each tall enough that the rails fit, and I like the controls there.
I set up the new treadmill and started walking while working. It was like riding a bicycle. Just, you know, without wheels.
One foot in front of the other
When you’re first starting out on a treadmill desk, walking 1.5 miles per hour or slower is the way to go. It takes some time to get used to seeing your screen while you’re moving, and typing while walking adds some complexity. But if you start slow and work your way up, you can get to comfortable casual paces — again, mine is currently between 2.4 and 2.6 miles per hour — without impacting your work at all.
I still shut off the treadmill while on Zooms. But on audio calls, no one hears a thing. I’ve even recorded multiple podcast episodes while treading and no one knew. I use the NS1 Noise Supressor plugin from Waves on my recordings, but Zoom’s built-in noise cancellation and even GarageBand and Logic’s freely included noise gates do a great job of stripping out the treadmill’s sound.
I did encounter a few technical hurdles with my latest treadmill desk setup. Some were related to my displays, and some were related to getting my ego-boosting step count credit. Let’s start with the latter.
I wear an Apple Watch and an Oura Ring. Neither is particularly good at tracking steps on a treadmill desk. If you tell the Apple Watch you’re doing an indoor walk, it’ll fare slightly better, but only barely: In my testing over a few days, it would record 20 to 30 percent of the distance I actually covered.
The problem is that unlike normal walking — or even traditional treadmill walking — treadmill desk walking doesn’t involve my arm movement. I’m typing and walking literally right now as I write these words; there’s not much for smart devices to glom onto to figure out how many steps I’m taking. But I wanted credit for my steps, dammit!
You can buy (much) pricier treadmills that offer different levels of Apple Health integration through their own third-party apps. You can buy third-party adapters to strap your Apple Watch to your ankle, where it can log your steps better. (But unless you’re very limber, said placement makes it rather difficult to check your notifications.)
Even your iPhone itself can count your steps — and I considered just dropping mine in my pocket to measure my treadmill walking. But I, you know, use my phone a lot, so that solution didn’t seem like the right one.
I went even lower tech: I bought a cheap, rechargeable pedometer that I stick in my pocket when I’m on the treadmill. When I stop the treadmill, I look at the pedometer and manually log those steps in the Health app. Or I used to, until I asked myself WWJD: What would Jason do?
I built a dead-simple Shortcut with three steps: Ask for numerical input, log those steps in Health, and then confirm with an on-screen message. I saved that Shortcut as an app on my iPhone, and now it takes mere seconds to look at the pedometer, log those steps, and move on with my day.
Except… when I first started this approach, I noticed that Health (and my third-party apps that connected to it) didn’t always reflect my increased step count. I’d manually logged 10,000 incremental steps, but the app was stuck on 2500.
The trick is understanding how Health prioritizes disparate data sources. Apple knows you have multiple devices that theoretically can measure your physical activity (your phone, watch, third-party fitness apps), and does some behind-the-scenes work to avoid double counting. And by default, Health trusts the Apple Watch to be the best source of intel for your movement. I get that instinct, but it’s wrong for treadmill deskers.
To tweak this, head over to the Health app, tap the Browse tab, and find Steps. Scroll down to the bottom and choose “Data Sources & Access.” The next screen may take a long moment to load. Once it does, scroll to Data Sources. If your phone is anything like mine — and you’ve owned or reset a few Apple Watches and iPhones in your day — you will likely see a lengthy list. Mine lists multiple entries for “Lex’s Apple Watch” and “Alexander’s Apple Watch” and numerous old iPhones. And in my case, Shortcuts was listed at the very bottom.
Tap Edit at the top right, and drag Shortcuts way up to the top of the list. Now steps entered via your new Shortcut will take priority.
Monitoring your health
There was one final tech aspect I had to handle for my personal setup. I use an M2 MacBook Air, which supports one external display. But I still wanted my seated setup to work for when I need a walking break. And my giant, 3-foot wide curved Dell monitor wouldn’t fit in my standing desk space. So I ordered a new monitor for my treadmill desk setup, and needed to figure out how to connect both to my MacBook Air at the same time.
It was time for me to learn about DisplayLink. In truth, I learned as little as possible. I installed DisplayLink on my Mac and ordered a DisplayLink adapter, the subtly named WAvLINK USB 3.0 to HDMI Adapter for Multiple DIsplays, 2k. You may need a different one if your monitor has a higher resolution, but this worked great for me. I now have the treadmill monitor connected via that adapter and an HDMI cable, and — as with my giant Dell monitor — it mirrors my laptop’s screen.
Once that was all set up, I encountered one final hiccup: Notification Center stopped working.
I’d get texts and reminders and other alerts, and they’d be in Notification Center on my Mac itself, but they’d never appear as banners on screen.
That’s because mirrored Macs with multiple displays default to expecting you’re presenting something — so they hide your alerts. Head to System Settings -> Notification Center and turn on “Allow notifications when mirroring or sharing the display.”
Do tread on me
I’m down 19.1 pounds since November. I’ve walked more than two miles while writing this piece for Six Colors.
I take seated breaks when I need to, but honestly they’re fewer and further between than you might guess.
The last time I used a treadmill desk, I took to eating more desserts and such because I could do so without gaining weight, thanks to the extra calories I was burning walking 10 to 20 extra miles per day. This time, at least so far, I’m not eating so much extra; I’m just burning more.
Now that I’ve figured out all the nuances covered here, everything’s pretty seamless; I walk up to my desk, and then I start walking. As bad for you as lots of sitting can be, lots of walking is pretty darn healthy. And the journey of a thousand healthier work days begins with a single step.
[Lex Friedman is the co-host of The Rebound, an independent consultant, the proprietor of Lex.Games, and so much more--but he's not that other Lex.]
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