Standing mat vs. Gymba board

If you’re trying to find a solution to bring variation to your positions during your day at the office and to make standing work more pleasant, you’ve probably come across standing mats and different kinds of boards. There are lots of options for standing and antifatigue mats on the market and also more and more different kinds of balance boards that are suitable for standing work. Because Gymba board is in its own league what comes to standing desk balance boards, we’ll publish later on an article concentrating to the differences between Gymba board and other balance boards. But this article however is focusing comparing Gymba board and standing mats providing also a chart of their features.

Why should you get an accessory for standing work, such as a standing mat or a Gymba board?

If you’ve ended up reading this article, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that you need and/or want an accessory for you standing workstation to make standing more pleasant and you most likely know what benefits it has. But just very quickly for repetitions sake; no matter what kind the accessory is – a standing mat or a board – its biggest benefit and purpose is to get one’s butt off the chair since it makes standing more pleasant. If you already have tried standing in your work station, you’ve most likely come to the same conclusion than so many others: passive standing on a hard surface does not feel good! You can’t stand for long because you start feeling it wearing on your legs and your back.

What is the difference between a standing mat and Gymba board?

On the chart below you can see a comparison of the features of standing mat and Gymba board. However I’ve concluded the main differences into this chapter. While both make standing more pleasant than just standing on a hard surface, one key difference is that standing on a standing mat is remarkably more passive than standing on the Gymba board. (Read more about dynamic standing here.) Because standing mat doesn’t keep the body’s muscles active in the same way, you need to remind yourself to pay attention not letting the support from you core disappear and lose your posture. On the Gymba board, on the other hand, your core muscles are activated almost as if unnoticed and it’s actually quite hard to try to stand on in without having a good posture. What comes to versatility, the Gymba board takes the win, because while a standing mat doesn’t have any other function than being an accessory for standing work, the Gymba board on the other hand has several other functions and purposes such as stretching and muscle and balance training.

Standing mat and Gymba board features on scale low - medium - high:

Read more about the Gymba Board here.