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Do Ergonomic Chairs Really Work?
cliffski wonders: "I've gone from a job as a commuting programmer working on his own code as a hobby, to a full time work-from-home one-man business. As I spend a good hour or two a day gaming as well as a full day's coding, I'm now sitting at the same desk for an awfully long time. Should I invest in one of those trendy ergonomic chairs that force you to sit with a straight back posture? Has anyone used one for a length of time, and does it really help prevent back pain? I've taken up archery, probably the best sport to encourage you to adopt good posture; are there any other tips Slashdot readers have for avoiding 'programmer slouch'?"
Exercise will make your back pain go away. It'll also help your wrists.
But if you're going to be sitting in a chair 12 hours a day, an Aeron is very comfortable, and you can set it to 'no-slouch' mode.
I tried one a few years back when I was a ripe old 22. After an hour or so my knee joints started to ache. It may get better over time, but I won't use them.
As a developer and computer junkie, I have to say the best type of chair is a plain normal office chair, it forces me to not become comfortable enough to slob about.
The biggest problem is sitting in the same place all day, it does your back, arms, eyes and neck no good.
I find my best work comes whilst I am away from my desk, having a smoke, laying on my bed, pacing around, playing with the kids or just watchin tv.
Get your eyes away from your screen and think about the code you are about to write.
Take a pad and pencil and make sparse notes, formulate solutions then do your code in short bursts when you return so you don't strain yourself.
I would also recommend swimming over archery since archery seems more like a strength persuit rather than excersize.
liqbase
I've had a Herman Miller Aeron at work for 4+ years. I really like it, how the meshy material breathes when I've been sitting in it for far too long, and boy it sure looks cool. But I'm not sure that it's made much of a difference in my posture. I've adjusted all the controls, even watched the "Proper Posture" video they have on their website, but I still do horrible things like sit cross-legged in it, slouch, etc. I think it comes down to your willingness to commit to a proper egonomic regimen. I'm lazy in that way.
It would be better for you to get up once an hour or so and take a stroll; smell the flowers.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
... if you're the average male--not too tall, short, fat, thin, etc.; and you always sit in them exactly as they designed you to sit in them--no slouching, sitting sideways, on the "edge of your seat", with your feet up, etc....
My advice? Go to one of those office supply places and sit in every chair. Buy the one you feel is most comfortable, and learn how to make all the possible adjustments. Next, get off your ass every now and then--stretch your legs, go have a conversation (with yourself) at the water cooler (kitchen sink), etc....
I have a Steelcase Leap. It's pretty much your classic office chair, except it has good lumbar support, and is designed to allow you to move around and adopt slightly different postures.
I found that with many ergonomic chairs, it didn't matter how perfect the back shape was--sitting in any kind of fixed position for long enough would give me back ache. With the Leap, the back is designed to flex.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I have one and use it some, but if I have to take one chair, it will be a regular one. If two, it would be the regular chair and a large exercise ball like this one. (Their sizing chart is for excersizing rather than sitting, so I recommend getting one size up if you'll use it as a chair.) The on-your-knees-slave chair is nice to have for variety's sake, though.
Long form: I've used about five or six different brands/models of that type of posture chair and ALL of them hurt my knees and shins and fuck up my back, although they seem to be good for my shoulders. I'm not willing to trade my knees, shins, and back for my shoulders, which are the only part of my body that hurts after sitting in normal chairs.
On a more personal, TMI-kind of note, I end up crushing the boys when trying to sit in them while wearing pants. Maybe my balls just hang low (swing to and fro, tie them in a knot etc) but I don't consider a chair that I can only sit in while pantsless to be very useful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A>
The whole purpose of ergonomic chairs is to remove the fat wad of cash from your wallet, and make you spend lots of money so you can lose weight due to your nervousness at being able to afford them in the first place.
I get mine at the university surplus for $5 or $10 each, instead of the $1000 the original buyer paid. I think our office was equipped for about $100 all told.
That said, I find if you don't get up and stretch about once every hour or so, you'll probably end up with back problems. And if you'd just take the stairs instead of sit all day, you'd have far fewer problems in the first place, since humans are designed to walk about 30 to 45 minutes a day.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I tried a kneeler, and found it hard on my knees and knee joints. Even tried it with a pillow on the lower part... Now it's a rolling junk holder.
Might work better for skinny people; I wouldn't know.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is the theory behind those programs to remind you to take short breaks every hour. It's also a good excuse to ask your employer for a laptop computer so you can amble over to the couch, the coffeeshop, the park, or wherever you feel like working. Stay moving, stay alive.
It sounds plausible, and I've heard the same thing from at least two other chiropractors I've met. (I've never developed a cubicle injury, at least not yet--I was seeing a chiropractor for physical therapy, long story.)
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
Others have said it, I'll say it again...
It's much easier and cheaper to just get up and move around than it is to get a really expensive chair. I assume you have a laptop, so move around with it. Sit at the desk for a while, sit on the couch, sit on a bed, go outside and sit on the front steps (if it's not raining), etc.... Your day will be less monotonous if you're not staring at the same desk and wall the whole time, too.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
try Ballmer
I don't feel like it...
I did a quick search on the net for info to point you to, but I ended up finding an article recommending against it. I would still try it to see what you think, because I think the article is exaggerating the whole "instability" angle. They also have ads for what look like super expensive ergonomic chairs, so I wonder if there's any connection there. Anyway, it appears that that website also has an ergonomics forum, so you may want to ask the same question there.
Here's a response I wrote to a related article on ergonomic keyboards. The parent is correct, exercise is the best known intervention.
Get some private Pilates lessons. (If you need to find an instructor, there are good resources at The Pilates Method Alliance.)
It helped my back pain when nothing else did, post a car accident.
Pilates Studios are also usually 10-1 female, and they're often young attractive dancer types, so it's fun for that reason as well.
Ultra-comfortable, ultra-ergonomic, designed for sitting in one position for many hours, extremely durable, high quality and... ultra-cheap!
Visit a car scrapyard and buy the best car seat you can find. Right now typing this from a luxury model BMW driver's seat. Cost: $17. If this one dies (not likely!), I'm gonna get another. Never more overpaying for computer desk chairs in furniture shops!
Minus: Not rotating. Plus/minus - heavy, not really movable (but can be easily adjusted forward/back, sliding on rails). And requires some (little) work to make a good basis/attachment.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I worked in an Aeron chair 8-10 hours a day for 8 years. No back pain. I changed jobs and now have a generic office chair. Back pain. Draw your own conclusions.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Those chairs are great. I sat in a Herman Miller Aeron for about 3 years, and it really kept me from hurting compared to the older chairs I sat in. I picked up an old (1975) Herman Miller Ergon for home, and it's nearly as comfortable. The cool thing about the HM stuff, is there is a lifetime warranty on it. I had a wheel stop working, and then sent out a truck and fixed it for free, and that chair is 30 years old.
But, do you know your back pain is coming from your chair? It certainly might have something to do with it, however, I read an article that said 60% of americans are chronically dehydrated and that can cause back pain. I thought about it, and I really didn't drink that much water. I started carrying a water bottle with me everywhere, and my back rarely hurts anymore.
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When I first started working from home, I had a generic office chair. After a couple of weeks, I couldn't stand to stay in it for more than a half-hour or so. So I went to the local "ergonomic chair" dealer and got their top-of-the-line chair for waaaay much money. Took it back within a week, because it kind of locked me in one position and wouldn't let me shift around much. Then I got an Aeron chair (cheap at the height of the dot-bomb meltdown), and it's been great. I'd get another if anything happened to mine, and they're not terribly expensive anymore (I think they were >$1000 around 2000, they're like $600 now).
Just junk food for thought...
I bought it about 1 1/2 years ago now. Personally it is the best computer/desk chair I have ever had. It is extremely comfortable and the use of the fabric stuff makes it breath very well. Depending on which model you get you can have different types of back/lumbar support. I picked up a fully adjustable model with lumbar support, a leather arms (I didn't pay for the crome model though, look great but was not worth it since it was in my upstairs bedroom). You still need to set it up properly for good back/ergonomic support and use it that way. But I really just set it up for comfort :)
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
The chair I've lusted for over the past decade-plus is one like the Relax-the-Back "Perfect Chair" (http://www.livingincomfort.com/ec11130.html for instance), but they start at over $1000 dollars. Cheap compared to doctor bills, I guess, but $1000 for a chair is unlikely for my near-future budget :)
:) As Bill Shatner might once have said, in a strained and melodramatic voice, "Must! ... have! ... a! ... dream!"
However, a few days ago I picked up from the local Dick's Sporting Goods a similarly reclining chair (mesh, not leather) which folds, weighs probably about 15 pounds, and only cost $60. Since I've had it only a few days, I can't make long-term evaluations yet, but it's comfortable for laptop-typing, and sure beats my usual awful posture in an office chair. For instance, I'm sitting at the moment in a fairly comfy chair from Office Depot (one of the leather "manager's chairs" they have on recurring sales for 80 or 100 bucks), but frankly it's only fairly comfy in comparison to most other chairs I've tried. Aerons are nice, but not all they're cracked up to be. Some Aeron competitors stop at looking vaguely similar (and aren't comfortable), and I suspect some surpass the real Aeron in comfort, but I haven't hit any yet. My position is like this:
- left leg, extended forward onto a metal shelf (resting on a jerry-rigged shelf-pad made of a folded grey fleece sleeping bag)
- right leg folded and tucked under the left one
- back in only moderate agony
I'm not on the newer reclining one only because I'm lazy and in the room where it is not.
I've tried the kneeling chairs, and didn't much like them; the forward creep (and the battle with pants slippage!) made the novelty wear off; they're strictly OK rather than awesome. What I really want is a space couch from the shuttle, and LCD on the ceiling, and a working, intuitive voice-recognition system that's available as a deb and under an OSI-approved license
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I worked at an Internet startup that spent almost zero on office furniture. Our desks were doors mounted on top of filing cabinets. But everyone got Aeron chairs -- and they had a selection of chair sizes to suit everyone.
I have to say that the Aeron made it possible to work long hours -- even with 14 hour days, I felt fine. That wasn't the case with other office chairs, before or since. While it was popular to scoff at the Aeron chairs during the dot-com-crash days, I actually think those chairs were actually sensible spending by the companies.
Cheap sub-$100 chairs are crap. If you're going to buy ONE chair for yourself, you're better off going to a good retail dealer and have them educate you on the product, and choose/adjust the seat that fit you. And, if they're a true high-quality retailer, they should be willing to take the seat back even after you've taken it home for a couple weeks. If you're going to spend money on making yourself productive, be generous to yourself.
I occasionally have back problems. Sitting in my $129 generic office chair from Office Depot I couldn't sit for more than 10 minutes without having to get up (painfully), take a break and lie down. Go to work and sit in my $600 Aeron and I can go a full day (with intermittent walking breaks) without significant discomfort. AERON ROCKS! I had a kneeling chair when I was 18, it worked fine, never had any complaints.
A few years ago I worked for a company that had to watch every penny. So of course they didn't want to buy me any kind of fancy chair. In fact, despite paying me big bucks, they gave me a chair that even the telemarketing staff had rejected. The back cushion was detached from its cardboard backing and flopped all over the place.
Well, after a year or so of that, I got severe pain in my hands from the poor typing position that ensued from such a crummy chair. I went to a doctor and he prescribed a truly bizarre wrist splint and an ergonomic chair.
My panicked boss, fearing potential lawsuits in the air, bought me an Aeron and a wrist rest for my keyboard. I tried the wrist splint but it was so weird feeling to use that I didn't use it more than a day or so.
Haven't had any wrist problems since, so having an Aeron or a similarly adjustable chair definitely helps a lot. I had bought an Aeron for home use before getting the one at my work. I now work at home so I'm either using the Aeron or relaxing outdoors with lawn chairs. For some reason relaxing outdoors, even with non-optimal chairs, seems to work wonders for my attitude. Curious but true.
I don't know about the kneeling chair. I tried one once but found it so uncomfortable and strange it wasn't of interest.
Hope that helps.
D
Developing good posture will alleviate your need for an ergonomic chair like this. In my experience, these chairs tend to be uncomfortable after an hour or two. Take frequent breaks and exercise, in addition to developing good posture, and you'll not find yourself quite so uncomfortable.
That said, zafu and zabuton (cushions traditionally used in meditation and for sitting in general) are very good for helping to develop good posture; the loft and angle of the cushions forces the spine into alignment, which relieves pressure. There's nothing to support your back for you, so you'll eventually be able to sit with better posture without relying on the back of a chair to do it for you.
I promise you this. You can't go to a chair store and try each one out. You don't know if you like a chair until you've spent a week sitting on it all day long.
True: "Exercise will make your back pain go away."
Specifically, strengthening your stomach muscles by doing sit-ups or crunches helps your back muscles relax. Often where you feel the pain is not the position of the actual problem.