Do any of the following symptoms affect you?

Your thighs are aching and you have been sitting for barely an hour, particularly the undersides – maybe even some numbness.

No matter what way you sit you can’t find comfort and your buttocks are really uncomfortable, continually shuffling around provides temporary relief, yet it never lasts for long and you soon seem to be back where you started.

Your lower back appears to be in constant pain and you attempt to relieve this by changing position in your chair, the trouble is any relief is temporary and that nagging back pain
soon returns.

Your shoulders and neck are often stiff, rigid even and the lack of movement brings on pain because the muscles supporting these parts of your body are stressed and tired. And this tends to happen almost daily as you work, especially on a tight deadline.

Arms and wrists flag very quickly especially when using a mouse intensively, you are concerned you may end up with RSI (repetitive stress injury) or carpal tunnel problems if it isn’t sorted out soon.

All of the above conditions are all too common for people working with computers regularly and many will put them down to tiredness, stress and pressure of work, which are actually the symptoms of the problems.

This free downloadable report (no opt-in needed), examines these common problems, what causes them and how to find a solution. Get hold of 5 Secret for Solving Office Chair Pain and Discomfort now.

The EHS article makes some interesting statistical points drawing on a UK survey conducted by The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and its recommended advice:

• The UK survey found 57% of participants suffer with backache
• The survey also discovered only 36% of people feel their employer provides them with a comfortable office chair
• Taking short breaks away from the workstation helps relieve strain
• People need to move more frequently during the day, getting out of your chair and walking burns 5 times the calories than when sitting

In my earlier article I draw attention to these additional points:

• Our bodies are designed for movement, sitting in a static posture for hours is unhealthy and bad
• As we get older these issues become more noticeable and significant
• Pain is nature’s way of telling you something isn’t right and it’s time to act and change the cause of it
• Getting out of your office seat frequently and doing some light exercise is vital
• Investing in a quality office chair is one the best moves you can make for you posture, health and productivity.

Here’s where you can find the EHS Today article as well as my recent article on the significance of variation and movement in the office explaining what you need to do to keep your body healthy at work.

Typically, if they are too high, you will find your shoulders being pushed up in the air and this unnatural position often leads to shoulder and neck pain.

Less commonly, they may not be high enough. If this is the case, the only way to compensate for this is to alter the seat height. However this may well mean you are not sitting at the right height, and it can cause leg and back pain.

Fixed arms are often uncomfortable, even if they are the right height. They tend to be made from hard plastic and can be painful when used for any length of time.

This will rapidly become apparent when they’re too high for the way you sit, as they will be applying even greater pressure, so not only do they cause neck and shoulder pain, they also hurt the underside of your arms.

Maneuverability is often hindered by fixed arms. Because they are static and can’t be moved, they may well get in the way when you want to move your chair.

Things like pushing the chair under your desk while you clean or moving it around a tight space aren’t possible unless you lower the chair height, which then means you need to reset the seat height again.

Also, if you like to work up close to your desk, the arms probably won’t go under the desk edge unless you lower the seat height considerably.

When you lower the seat, you end up working at the wrong height and shoulder and neck pain soon set in. For the additional cost, it always makes sense to go for height-adjustable arms, and if the chair isn’t available with them it probably isn’t the right choice in the first place.

In fact, it’s probably better to have no arms rather than fixed ones.

This article and video take a look at the five essential features of an ergonomic office chair, with adjustable arms being one of them.

“When you reach 50 and wake up in the morning and nothing is hurting, you’re dead.”

I can tell you he was right.

It’s true for baby boomers too because we’re just not getting any younger, in fact it’s estimated that 7900 people a day in the US turn 60. Our bodies have spent too many years in the same posture, probably a poor one at that. So, it makes good sense to start taking care of things a bit better.

Office chairs have improved in quality enormously in the past 20 years. Nonetheless, some will have spent a good number of years before this sitting in a lot of pretty awful chairs and many still do so by buying $100 desk chairs which continue to quietly inflict pain and suffering.

All of this adds up to wear and tear on our bodies and so we start to develop aches and pains, back issues, neck and shoulder pain, wrist and lower arm troubles—maybe nothing major yet; however, they are all warning signs.

Much like a car, if you don’t keep it serviced, it will develop all kinds of problems. So too will you. As the years go by, the more important this becomes.

The Right Tool for the Job

If you still spend a good part of the day sitting at your computer at work, it’s more important than ever that you give your body the best possible support and comfort.

A good, well-designed office chair with the right functions makes comfortable working all day possible. Here’s where you will find a quick summary of suitable chairs to investigate, and you may even want to be more adventurous and consider a kneeling chair. Many people swear by them as a great alternative to a conventional seat.

Look after your body it’s the only one you’ve got.

seat depth adjustment is vital

If you pick 10 people at random and measure their leg length as well as taking measurements from knee to heel and knee to waist it would be unlikely you will get 2 identical sets of dimensions.

Why is this important? Well, you would hardly expect them to all wear the same length of clothing, even if you allowed for different waist sizes. And yet the vast majority of office chairs make no allowance for this variation because the seat depth can’t be altered.

This is all well and good if you fit the size the chair manufacturer aimed the chair at. What is the average, does anyone know? 5ft 6ins 5ft 9ins who knows? I’ve yet to see an office chair which states the leg length it is supposed to fit, this is far from ideal.

Here’s how a chair can affect different users when it is not suitable for their leg length.

People who have short legs and particularly in their upper legs will find they have to perch on the edge of the chair. This is because they can’t sit back in the chair and bend their knees properly or place their feet squarely on the floor.

This often leads to back pain as their back is completely unsupported and sitting often becomes uncomfortable too.

At the other end of the height scale big and tall users often have the opposite problem. They have to sit right back in the chair and yet their legs still overshoot the edge of the chair by far too much.

This puts pressure on the underside of the thighs and also their back and some will have to compensate by setting their chair too high just to get their feet on the floor at a reasonable angle.

So it’s always best to insist on selecting a chair with leg depth adjustment. The commonest form of adjustment is a sliding seat, although some chairs allow the user to move the back in and out and this is OK too.

Here are a couple of articles you can check out. The first explains how to adjust your office chair for your own needs and the second looks at further aspects of seat depth adjustment.

And yet all too few realize why they should look beyond just dropping in and buying a new chair on their way home, especially when the one they have is so uncomfortable.

Why is this?

Price conditioning. I think one of the main reasons is we have unwittingly allowed ourselves to become conditioned by price. Likely the only time we see a task chair for sale is when shopping for stationery and stuff at the local office supplies warehouse.

There are always plenty of offers on chairs, usually sub $100 and so this sets the idea in our mind of what price they are.

Next is a lack of product awareness, nothing wrong with that we can’t all be experts in everything. So we see these glitzy chairs with their levers, shiny metal bases and often leather upholstery.

We start thinking these look great and this is just what the seller wants you to think. The only problem is they are rarely great, it’s nearly always a case of beauty being skin deep.

Price resistance. When people do come across a quality ergonomic office chair, one look at the price and the reaction is who in their right mind would pay this for an office seat?

After all it’s only for sitting on, true of course and yet if you stop to think about how long you do actually sit in your chair each day what do you get, 6, 8, 10 hours a day?

Ask yourself, would you be happy with a bed which only cost $70? Chances are if you work long hours at your computer workstation you may well spend more time in your chair than your bed. Does that start to make it important to get a proper chair? I think so.

Never tried one. Another reason for rejecting a quality office chair is most who do so have probably never sat in one and therefore aren’t in a position to make such a judgement. And I’m not talking about a quick couple of minutes in an office showroom.

It’s only by spending several hours or days that you will truly appreciate the difference between a quality seat and a budget one. It’s chalk and cheese.

Here’s a useful article on the 5 essential office chair functions you must insist on next time you buy a new chair, if you want to achieve true comfort.

Summary

• You need to get beyond price alone, quality first then the cost
• Looks isn’t a good guide to quality, don’t be fooled by surface gloss
• If you work long hours at your desk a quality chair is vital
• You may well be amazed how much better you feel in a quality office chair

Swopper at Desk

The Via Swopper stool is a fascinating alternative to the normal office chair we are all familiar with. It certainly looks kind of odd and yet is surprisingly effective, especially for anyone who finds a conventional office seat challenging.

What exactly is it and how does the Swopper work? Initially it looks rather like a bar stool, however there is a lot more to it than that.

In reality it is a highly engineered German made ergonomic stool with a heavy duty spring around a height adjustable gas lift which connects to its well padded seat. By adjusting the spring’s tension you control how much movement it has.

What you are doing is using your body weight to make the seat pivot forwards at an angle moving as you move.

So how is it beneficial for your working comfort? First, you need to adjust the stool height and spring tension to suit your personal preference and this is easy and simple to do.

Then as you use the Swopper it actively engages your body’s core and back muscles helping you use them to control your sitting position. It’s all very simple to do and once you have adjusted the height and tension it actively encourages healthy body movement and muscle use keeping you in an active sitting position.

Are there any drawbacks to it? The main challenge may well be the need to build your core muscle tone which will likely take a few weeks. To begin with it’s going to be best to retain your existing office chair and use the Swopper for short spells and gradually build the length of time in it over a period of several days.

If you like to recline a lot in your chair then it won’t be a good choice as it is not intended to be used this way. Still, you can always stand up and stretch or take a walk around the office.

What about its advantages? The main benefit with a Swopper is there are no ongoing adjustments once you have set up the height and spring tension, although you may want to fine tune these initially.

It will help you get toned up and discover muscles you didn’t even know existed.

It has a neat compact footprint and can be stored quickly and easily under your desk or in a corner somewhere when not in use.

Want to know more? Here’s a review of the Swopper stool as well as an article on the benefits of this kind of ergonomic office stool.

First, make sure you have your chair comfortably adjusted and positioned with your desk so you have a good upright posture and aren’t leaning or lurching at an unnatural angle.

Next, you need to take into account the 3 elements involving the equipment and items you use when working, these are:

• Primary Work Zone
• Secondary Work Zone
• Rarely Used Items

Let’s take a look at each in some more detail.

Primary Work Zone

Imagine sitting in your computer chair with an arc immediately in front of you with a radius of about 12 inches (30 cms) from where you are sitting at your desk, this is your primary work zone.

It should include things you use often or for extended periods during the working day, so it will likely be your keyboard and mouse, pens etc. Arrange them so you can easily reach them.

Secondary Work Zone

This covers a larger area immediately beyond the primary zone extending the arc to about 20 inches (50 cms).

Items in this area should be things you will need occasionally and so may include items like your phone, copy holders, paperwork you plan to work with at some point during the day. Although having less frequent use they can still be reached reasonably easily.

Rarely Used Things

Anything you rarely use can be placed outside the primary and secondary areas. If you have a large desk it could be items like filing trays or maybe a desktop scanner.

Putting It All Together

For the next couple of days make a conscious effort to keep a close check on what you are and aren’t using when working. Note them down and sort them into the categories covered above and then start re-arranging things so the most often used items are nearest to hand.

You’ll find this will help you work a lot more efficiently in your desk chair and by minimizing stretching and reaching for things you use frequently working comfort will likely improve too.

This is bad because when you finally do go to move out of your seat you find you are as stiff as a board and feel a bit like a half open Swiss army knife which your painful back and tired muscles swiftly signal as soon as you try to get up.

If this sounds like you then you need to start taking better care of your body before developing chronic posture problems, it’s easy enough all it needs is to replace some of these bad habits with some good ones.

Here’s a 3 point checklist of some good habits to develop.

Good Habit No: 1 – Taking Regular Breaks

The human body is made to move it simply isn’t designed to remain in the same position for hours on end so become conscious of your body and listen to what it is telling you. Pain is a signal from the brain alerting you to something which needs fixing.

Make sure you get out of your chair regularly during the day, take a walk around the office grab a coffee or tea, and if possible try and get a minute outdoors and take some deep invigorating breaths of fresh air it will boost your energy and concentration levels. And if you work from home a quick stroll in the garden a few times a day will help clear the mind and re-charge your mental batteries.

Good Habit No: 2 Stretch And Move While You Are Working

Make a point of stretching frequently while in your chair, something as simple as stretching your arms and legs will aid circulation and muscle tone. If your chair is inflexible and you can’t do this easily and has you fixed like a rusted hinge give serious consideration to replacing it, here is a quick summary of user friendly desk chairs worth checking out.

Good Habit No: 3 Doing Regular Simple Exercises Throughout The Day

Regular exercises throughout the day offer a huge benefit for your well being and working comfort. Ideally exercise every half hour certainly on the hour as a minimum, here are some simple office exercise routines for keeping neck, back shoulders and legs toned and supple.

So there you have it make a point of developing these good working habits as part of your daily work routine so they become second nature to you, movement is the key to keeping your body in shape and mind alert.

Yes the humble telephone incorrectly used is capable of creating a lot of neck problems both now and in the future.

How does this happen? You see it all the time, people trying to take calls and write at the same time, what do they do? They wedge the phone between their ear and shoulder and contort their neck into a horribly unnatural position, this places excessive strain on the neck and shoulder muscles as well as the vertebrae in the neck.

Invariably people always take calls on the same side so they don’t even give their neck a chance to balance up the distortion this creates.

And the problem has got worse as mobiles are more commonplace and smaller than ever and so encourage this bad habit.

At least with a hard wired office phone it is quick and natural to switch to speakerphone and make writing notes and taking the call easier, although for confidentiality and annoying colleagues nearby in a large office this isn’t always practical.

Fortunately many modern mobiles let you take calls via a speaker and they nearly all come with a cheap earpiece and microphone so there really isn’t any excuse for sitting screwed up in your office chair cradling your phone and trying to take notes at the same time.

And if the supplied earpiece and mic are really poor replacing them with a better quality headset with built in microphone won’t cost you that much.

So, if you are a neck cradler when taking calls you need to break the habit and consciously become aware of when you are abusing your body like this. Fortunately if you do it frequently enough your body will tell you by inflicting a good dose of neck pain on you.

Break the habit now before you do any lasting damage and start running up chiropractor’s bills, for as the years go by you’ll be glad you did.