However, this added flexibility comes at a cost as they aren’t ideal for healthy working. They let us get lazy in our working comfort and unwittingly encourage a number of bad habits which if left unchecked will result in back and neck pain and discomfort frequently leading to long term health implications.

You see people working badly at their laptop, resting it on their knees in crowded waiting areas, hunched over them on the daily commute by train, and in the house slumped on a sofa with their backs rounded and necks craning forward.

Sometimes it just isn’t practical to work in ideal conditions on a laptop, nonetheless a lot of the time it is. Wherever possible they should be used on a flat work surface like a desk, table or worktop with a good quality chair.

Even then because of their small size the screen display can be hard to set at the right height and the simple solution is to use a laptop holder. These devices allow your portable PC to be set at the right height and angle for optimal working.

Depending on how it is designed it may be necessary to use an external keyboard where the holder obscures laptop’s built in keyboard.

There are many different designs of laptop holder and this article discusses some of the more popular models of these laptop accessories to help you work more comfortably.

And if you’re looking for the ultimate seating solution for wireless working this chair is perfect with or without a desk.

This can often help to take pressure off the underside of the thighs so often a source of muscle pain brought on by the pressure of sitting long hours in an office chair.

Some of the better models have roller bearings to let you move your feet on the angled foot support more easily to encourage circulation and a few even include built in massage balls so you can massage your feet as you work if you are daring enough to work without shoes on.

Some are critical of footrests and say they get in the way when moving position while working at your desk, an ideal solution to this is the revolutionary Webble™ which is highly portable and can be quickly shunted to one side with your feet if needs be.

Find out more by taking a quick look at some of the different models of footrest here.

Most of us set up our VDU screen when we first get it for what appears to be the best position for using it when sitting in an office chair typing or reading online content.

There’s nothing wrong with that, however, when we want to do something different, maybe hand write a report or study printed matter where we need an area of desk space to lay things out, our computer screen can often be in exactly the wrong place.

This is where a monitor arm can be really useful, the latest ones are generally supported on a round tubular pillar attached to the rear of the desk onto which is clamped an articulated arm.

Good ones allow a huge range of adjustment letting us pull our monitor in closer or vary its height and best of all simply push it out of the way when a clear desk is needed and pull it back in when we’re ready to use it again.

All these movements are pretty much effortless because modern arms are carefully engineered and designed to make moving your screen really easy.

And for increasing numbers of users who have two monitors in use at once a dual arm monitor support will make a big difference to how you work as you are able to pull in whichever screen you are working on at the time.

For serious monitor addicts multiple arm arrays are available to handle 3 or 4 monitors if the need arises.

This article takes a look at some of the popular choices of monitor arm which are available to help make you work more comfortably and efficiently.

We all know the answer is to get up and have a stretch, trouble is when you are beavering away it’s so easy to forget.

Well the Webble™ will take of this while you continue sitting and working in your office chair. This revolutionary footrest makes it really easy to move your feet and legs whenever you feel like it as you continue working.

To discover more about this great lower limb exercise gadget I’ve added a review of it explaining how it works.

If you’ve got 3 or more then you ought to think seriously about replacing your chair with something better because it’s doing you no favors.

This list isn’t exhaustive, these are just some of the commonest problems.

1. Fixed arms – never seem to be where you want them especially the sort with a great curve in them, like we’ve all got curved forearms haven’t we?

2. Poor back height adjuster – a piece of oval steel on the back plugs into a hole in the back of the seat mechanism. It’s held in place with a single screw knob which just can’t seem to resist working loose all the time. And to hide this piece of non-engineering it maybe has the luxury of a length of concertina black plastic which always manages to ride up and expose the tube it’s supposed to hide.

3. Cheap seat foams – do you find after a short while of sitting back pain and discomfort sets in and it feels like the foam disappeared? Maybe it’s totally flat anyway, give away sign is chair fabric that’s all loose and baggy like clothing someone wore before they dieted.

4. Seat doesn’t tilt – let’s you sit at any angle as long as it’s 90 degrees and after a day sitting like this your body will be aching all over and thinking it’s morphed into a set square.

5. Chair has no tension adjustment – maybe you got lucky and are the same weight the manufacturer made the chair to suit. Chances are though it’s not like this for you, if you’re light built your chair will always dictate to you how you sit in it, you’ll always be fighting it. If you’re well built you may well experience being bounced all over the place because you’re stronger than the chair’s mechanism. Neither scenario is good, you just be comfortable or productive.

6. Seat doesn’t adjust to your leg length – this is still a feature that is the exception rather than the rule on office chairs, 80% don’t have it and yet it’s key to achieving proper seating comfort. Look around any office you’ll see the sufferers, short legged people perched on the seat edge because it’s way too deep. Long legged people sat back in their chair and still their legs overhang the chair edge by a mile.
Are you suffering discomfort as a result of this missing adjustment?

7. Adjustment levers are loose and imprecise – do the adjustment levers on your chair slosh around, are they really awkward to operate and feel like you’re stirring a cake mix? This is a common problem on cheap office chairs caused by poor design and low quality steel allowing excessive wear to build up in the moving parts.

Conclusion

So there you have it 7 tell tale signs which define junky office chairs. If your chair fails inspection on 3 or more of them, chances are you’re pretty fed up with it anyway, so maybe it’s time to look for a quality ergonomic office chair. Here’s a summary of the reviews of some quality office chairs worth looking at.

What are your pet office chair hates?

First, if you are using your chair on a delicate surface like a hardwood floor, or maybe a marble, stone or possibly an old pine boarded floor. These surfaces can easily get damaged or marked by the casters on an office chair and so most quality chair manufacturers produce casters specifically for use in these situations.

Even these can mark and wear delicate floor finishes, so for these sorts of situations a chair mat can prove an ideal solution.

Chair mats come in different materials and the most common is clear plastic however these vary considerably in quality and it’s best to avoid the really cheap ones as they soon curl up and split and develop undulations. Better quality ones are a good thickness and keep their shape.

There are some really nice quality hardwood finish mats and these are usually very good quality and will last for many years.

You can find more about chair mats in the chair accessories section of the website

When you have a mountain of work to complete a laptop or sub notebook can put your comfort and posture at a distinct disadvantage over working at a conventional PC.

For starters, sitting on a sofa or bar stool will soon cause you comfort issues, you need to be seated in an office chair.

Next, the built in mouse is totally inadequate for repeated mouse use, you need to get an external mouse.

Take time to learn any keyboard shortcuts because they’re a lot quicker and less stressful than using a mouse.

When you’re sitting in an office chair working on a laptop the screen is invariably too low and so you tend to bend your neck downwards to read the screen and it’s also likely that you will arch your back at the same time, the end result will be pain and discomfort.

Fortunately, there are specialist laptop holders to address this problem and raise the screen up, depending on the design it may be necessary to use anexternal keyboard too. This actually makes it a lot easier to type because you’re not stymied by a compressed keyboard layout.

So, to conclude when you’re using your laptop for serious work make sure you’re using a good office chair and look into investing in an external mouse and keyboard and maybe even a specialist laptop holder too.

You can find details on a wide range of often underutilized handy aids like office chair mats, footrests, back and wrist supports, monitor arms and glare filters and desk accessories such as copy holders and keyboard trays.

People working long hours at computer workstations will find these accessories will help increase their work rate and enhance their overall working comfort.

Follow the links above to find out more.