Choosing the Right Ergonomic Posture Chairs to Prevent Lower Back and Hip Pain

It is important to have quality ergonomic offic chairs that is ergonomically correct and supports the users’ lower back and encourages the user's good posture in order to avoid developing or compounding back problems. 

What kind of office chair is the best?

It is important to know that no one specific kind of office chair is necessarily the best but, there are some guidelines for an ergonomic computer desk and chair for you to choose the most suitable furniture. Follow below guidelines will allow the individual user to make the chair work better for his or her specific needs.

We will examine some of the alternatives that can be used as an office chair on top of the traditional office task chairs that maybe preferable for some people with back pain problems.

Some features good ergonomic posture chairs possess  

 
There are a number of things an ergonomic chair should have vs. a more traditional office chair:

•    Seat height. A pneumatic gas lift for adjustment on the seat height is the easiest way to allow users the best seat height for the individual.  Most people will fit in the ranges from about 16 to 21 inches off the floor.  If you are taller or bigger than the averaged, there are also ergonomic office chairs extra large avilable for your options. Seat height adjustment allows the user to rest his or her feet flat on the floor.  The thighs should be horizontal with the floor.  The individual user's arms should relax evenly with the height of the desk.

•    Seat width and depth. In General, 17 to 20 inches wide is good for most of users.  However, adjustable armrests allow different individual user to have flexibility on seat width is pretty common on a lot of ergonomic office chair.  The seat pan, ,preferabley an ergonomic office chairs tractor styple seat, should have enough width and depth to support any user comfortably. The depth (from front "waterfall" edge to back of the seat) needs to be enough so that the user can easily slide his or her fist between the back of the calf and the front of the seat pan while sitting with his or her back against the backrest of the ergonomic posture chair.  It is about 2 to 4 inches between the back of the knee calf and the edge of the seat pan. The forward or backward tilt of the seat should be adjustable with an office chairs ergonomic adjustable tilt lock.

•    Lumbar support. Most of people tend to slouch or lean forward when sitting without support for the lumbar spine over a long period of time. However, when slouch, people actually strain the structures in the lower spine which is one of the most common causes of lower back and hip pain.  Lower back support, or the use of back support cushions in ergonomic chairs is very important.  For each user to get the proper fit to support the inward curve of the lower back to relieve back from muscle fatigue low back pain, an ergonomic chair should have a lumbar adjustment on both height and depth.

•    Backrest. It is actually the most valuable feature for quality ergonomic office chairs.  Backrest is recommended to be adjustable not only on the height  but also on the angle if the backrest is separable from the seat.  For ergonomic posture chairs, the backrest should be about 12 to 19 inches wide.

It is essential that the backrest supports the natural curve of the spine.  The backrest should be able to adjust in forward and backward angle with a locking mechanism (office chairs ergonomic adjustable tilt lock) to secure it from going too far backward if the office chair has the seat and backrest together as one piece (we called it shell).Having the material on the backrest that can breathe is preferable to a hard surface.  Heavy duty mesh office chair with massage is recommended.


•    Seat material. High density foam that has good padding elasticity to be comfortable to sit on for a long period of time is important.  Memory foam is used to add comfort for a lot of executive office chair.

•    Armrests. The user’s arms should rest comfortably on the armrest while the shoulders relax close to the body.  The elbows and lower arms at an angle between 90 degree to 120 degree.  Avoid extreme hard angle.  The chair’s armrests are easily adjustable.

•    Swivel. 5 star casters with self-locking function to prevent tipping and providing mobility to the users by rotating the chair for users to reach different areas of his or her workstation with ease is important.



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