Is Your Desk Chair That Important?
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Chris Pirillo has an $800 office chair. Yes, I said $800. At one time I thought that was just extravagance, I mean come on, $800 for a chair is just ridiculous right? Recently I developed some rather severe back pain and went to the doctor. He sent me to the hospital, put me in that tiny tunnel of an MRI machine and the results were not good. I have a slipped disk at T-5/S1 (Lower back) and Degenerative Disk Desiese at T-12 (Mid Back).
How did that happen though? I’ve not injured myself that I remember. After speaking with the doctor, he suggested that it could have been my posture. I work at a computer for work and I spend a great deal of time at home in a computer chair as well. While the chair at work is a good one, I tend to sit low and slouched. This aparently has caused, or at least contributed greatly to my injury. The pressure I excerted on my spine from improper sitting caused the disk to rupture, which causes pressure on my nerve, which causes my pain.
I have a new respect for posture and sitting correctly and now make a consious effort to sit straight with my feet flat on the floor. That $800 chair doesn’t seem so rediculous to me anymore. While I can’t afford a chair that expensive, I did go out and buy a high back chair with lumbar support and adjustments for $150.
So, what do you need to look for in a chair? I did a little research and came up with the following. I suggest you take this to heart and make an effort now to sit correctly. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure right? If you’ve never experienced pain from pressure on your nerves, trust me, you don’t want to. I hope the below suggestions help others prevent the pain I am experiencing.
Seat height. Office chair seat height should be easily adjustable. A pneumatic adjustment lever is the easiest way to do this. A seat height that ranges from about 16 to 21 inches off the floor should work for most people. This allows the user to have his or her feet flat on the floor, with thighs horizontal and arms even with the height of the desk.
Seat width and depth. The seat should have enough width and depth to support any user comfortably. Usually 17-20 inches wide is the standard. The depth (from front to back of the seat) needs to be enough so that the user can sit with his or her back against the backrest of the chair while leaving approximately 2 to 4 inches between the back of the knees and the seat of the chair. The forward or backward tilt of the seat should be adjustable.
Lumbar support. Lower back support in a chair is very important. The lumbar spine has an inward curve, and sitting for long periods without support for this curve tends to lead to slouching (which flattens the natural curve) and strains the structures in the lower spine. A chair should have a lumbar adjustment (both height and depth) so each user can get the proper fit to support the inward curve of the lower back.
Backrest. The backrest of a chair should be 12 to 19 inches wide. If the backrest is separate from the seat, it should be adjustable in height and angle. It should be able to support the natural curve of the spine, again with special attention paid to proper support of the lumbar region. If the chair has the seat and backrest together as one piece, the backrest should be adjustable in forward and back angles, with a locking mechanism to secure it from going too far backward once the user has determined the appropriate angle.
Seat material. The material on the chair seat and back should have enough padding to be comfortable to sit on for extended periods of time. Having a cloth fabric that breathes is preferable to a harder surface.
Armrests. Chair armrests should be adjustable. They should allow the user’s arms to rest comfortably and shoulders to be relaxed. The elbows and lower arms should rest lightly, and the forearm should not be on the armrest while typing.
Swivel. Any conventional style or ergonomic chair should easily rotate so the user can reach different areas of his or her desk without straining.
2 Comments
leftystrat
July 15th, 2008
at 5:11am
Hear hear!
I hope you manage to get some relief.
The entire workspace is very important ergonomically. If you’re not set up correctly you can injure much more than your back. Wrist problems are very common.
My wrist pain went away when I started to use ergo keyboards and proper posture. The elbow should be at a 90 degree angle and the wrists should not be hyper-extended one way or the other to type. This is what will give you repetitive stress injury if you’re not careful.
Frequent breaks and stretching help too.
Best of luck.
Charlene
July 22nd, 2008
at 11:26am
I learned years ago that the chair you sit in front of the computer all day is very important. I am a short woman (5′) and I was using a standard chair that all offices had. It had a tall rectangular back and a square seat. Being short, meant that if I were to put my bent legs at the edge of the seat there was more than 2″ between my rear and the back of the seat.
At that time (1984) there were no real ergonomic studies. But I noticed that there were some fancier chairs with a shorter seat in the office for the AI computers that were shared by many others. I went to Personnel and requested that the company order one of those chairs for me. I also recommended that they buy a few extras for the other women in the company.
There was a secondary reason for my lower back problems. I had just moved from the East coast to the West coast. I drove my car across country. Since it was primarily highway, I set the seat back one more notch than usual and didn’t change it when I ended up in rush hour traffic (I had a clutch too) which took me 1 hour to drive 15 miles on the highway.
About 10 years later, I was temporarily located to headquarters of the company I worked for. After a few weeks using the chair that happened to be at my desk, my lower back started getting sore. I immediately requested a secretary chair (small seat). They grumbled, but gave me one. Within days my back pain was gone.
Now its another 15 year later, and I’m having lower back problems again but it is only on one side so it is confusing. I work at home. I bought a special $150 chair with only one thing wrong with it for me. It does not go low enough. To put my feet flat I need a foot rest. I had gone through all the chairs at Office Max and it was teh only chair under $200 that was close enough to being right for me. THe ones that did go low enough had other adjustments that weren’t right.
BTW After getting this chair my husband recommended it to his co-workers. One of them bought it and gave him a special company thankyou ($$$$) because it was good for his back. Eventually my husband needed a new chair since he worked at home and bought one too.