Are Desk Attachments for Your Treadmill Worth It?

Then there’s the fact that a recent popular answer to these problems—a walking pad (aka an under-desk treadmill)—is somewhat controversial. CR has found that the market is flooded with cheap, poorly made walking pads that pose a safety hazard to users who are just trying to get their steps in. 

Adding a desk attachment to your treadmill, then, seems like a fix: a safer, simpler option that allows you to walk a few chill miles while you answer email. 

In theory, anyway. 

I enlisted the help of Sarah Bogdan, CR’s treadmill and exercise equipment testing leader, and Dana Keester, one of CR’s ergonomics experts (who also conducts consumer research and user experience testing here) in evaluating treadmill desk attachments. 

None of us were especially impressed with the offerings. This is not just a reflection on the desks themselves; it turns out the design of specific treadmills matters. We tried out each desk on three treadmill models in our labs, and it appears that at least some just aren’t built to comfortably accommodate a desk (more on that below). I tried fitting each desk on all three of the treadmills we used for this project but ended up doing most of my evaluation using the one treadmill that all the desks actually fit on. 

But it also seems this product category could benefit from more thoughtful innovation, with a particular emphasis on ergonomics. There was one key problem: Many of these desks are just a single level. They can hold your laptop, but the setup essentially brings with it all the downsides of working on a laptop at your kitchen table or on your couch. “You’re going to be hunched over the laptop trying to work,” Keester says. “In a perfect world you’d have your laptop on one level and your keyboard and mouse on another.”

Configuring a treadmill desk setup this way, Keester says, would, in theory, allow you to strike the ideal posture for computer work: the screen at arm’s length from your body, with the top of it at eye level, elbows resting at your sides, bent at 90 degrees, and wrists in a neutral position. This is why we evaluated these desks two ways: with a laptop alone and then with a laptop plus a peripheral mouse and keyboard. 

Here’s what we found.