Choose An Office Chair That Doesn’t Suck

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hi, I’m Danielle Vernon, your back PT and ergonomist. I’m here today to help give you a few tips on how to choose a chair that doesn’t suck. So we know that there’s a lot of chairs out in market. There’s almost so many that it’s overwhelming. And one of the biggest questions that I get from my patients is how do they know how to choose a chair? So the thing that is most important about a chair is you want it to bring you into a nice neutral posture. You want it to be supportive and it’s not a one size fits all. We’re not a one size fits all society. So it’s really hard to just go into your big box name brand stores and just pick a chair that everybody’s getting. So the nuances of being able to pick one chair that really fits for you is important because yes, they’re expensive, but if you buy it right, you only have to buy it

Speaker 1: (00:50)
once. The other thing I like to tell my patients is, think about how much money we spend on our beds. And we probably spend maybe six to eight hours in a bed nowadays, especially if we’re spending eight to 12 hours in our chair. So it’s worthwhile spending that money. So the first thing we’re going to talk about in the chair is we’re going to talk about the different parts of the chair. So the top three points that we’re going to make today is about the chair height, the seat pan itself, and the chair back. Now we could spend hours talking about all the nuances of the different chairs and different ———-, but those are the three that we’re going to touch on today. Okay. So let’s take a look at these features. Remember, we want to make sure that you’re looking for a chair. That’s going to give you the best neutral posture, because if you’re comfortable, you’re more productive.

Speaker 1: (01:42)
So C type you want to make sure that the seat height is appropriate. So right now the seat height, I can dangle my feet. Okay. Not, not a good seat height for me, but if I go down too low, now I’ve got too much space between where my feet can come under. And I wanna make sure that I can keep that at a comfortable 90 degrees with my hips slightly higher. So I’m going to lift this up just a little bit more. And that’s about right here for me, that kind of waterfall effect so that if you had a drop of water that was on your knees, that drop a water would roll down off your knee instead of back towards your hip. The next thing we want to talk about is seat pan. So the seat pan is the part of the seat that you actually sit on that supports your thighs and your butt.

Speaker 1: (02:36)
So it’s important that it’s the correct shape for you so that it’s not compressing your legs in and not butting up against the back of your knees. So in a perfect world, we want two to three fingers width on either side of the seat pan to give your adequate room, to move as well as two to three fingers width on the side, between the back of your knee and the front of the seat. Otherwise, if it’s too far back, you’re going to move your butt forward because it’s pressing up against the back of your knees. Whereas if it’s too short, you’re going to also want to slip forward because it’s going to cut the back of your leg, right where that sciatic nerve becomes most superficial. So most chairs only have one seat pan width and depth. And that’s usually around 19 inches.

Speaker 1: (03:24)
But as I said before, we’re not a one size fits all. So if you have the choice, a good option is to make sure that your seat pan has a slider to it. In that case, there’s a, you can see how the seat pan goes forward and back. And that way you can make sure that when you’re sitting on it, you get the right seat pan depth for you, so that it’s creating support in the majority of your legs. Okay, So last but not least the backrest, the backrest should give you ample room for you to have your butt all the way to the back of the chair. And as you can see with this chair, there’s this ratchet system, which allows me to bring the cushion part of the lumbar side of the seat, up into the small of my back and give it a nice support.

Speaker 1: (04:14)
Having a back rest that adjusts allows you to use that ratchet system so that you can move it up or down and then put it exactly where you want and have it stay there. So having an adjustable backrest is also important, not only to give you enough length for your butt to come all the way back in the chair, but also to make sure that the back support stays in the right space. Okay, so in summary, there’s many different things that you can look at for a chair, but the three top things that are going to make your life most comfortable are going to be paying attention to the seat height, making sure your hips are slightly higher than your knees and that your feet can fall flat on the floor, not underneath your chair and making sure that your seat pan, the part of the chair that you’re sitting on gives you enough length to support the majority of your legs.

Speaker 1: (05:05)
Minus two or three fingers width behind the knee, lastly, that your back rest has a ratchet system, where It can come up and support you, according to what fits you right into the small of your back. Now, all else fails and you have a chair and you’re stuck. Then you’re trying to make the best of it. Sometimes an accessory item like a back support cushion in the thoracic area can actually take what you don’t have from the back rest and give you that support. For smaller people It can actually also be put down a little bit lower and make a long seat pan a little bit shorter for you. So let me quickly just show you how this works.

Speaker 1: (05:47)
Super easy double strap system. Just slide it over the back of the chair. And now you got your back support and potentially a ability to give your chair a little bit more comfort and a shorter seat pan. If you can’t slide the seat pan back and forth, super easy, super comfortable. So keep this in mind. We’re spending more time in our chairs than we ever have. So if we buy it right the first time then we only have to buy it once. Don’t let your body break down because if your body breaks, then you can’t be productive. So make sure that you’ve got a nice neutral spine. Make sure that it’s well supported from the ground up and you’ll be much happier. So, if you have any comments or questions or need more information, please feel free to reach out to us at our website, www.backbonecushion.com , and I hope you have a great day.