Ask Lemmy

Ergochair from aunomous.ai. Ricking the same chair since 2016.

A friend gave me this firm 'Sacro-ease' pad/cushion, it's about an inch (2.5cm) thick on the bottom and 2 inches on the top. Move the bottom up or down for best relief. Use it on my old chair all day, helps a lot.

Aeron was helpful for my bulging disc. Steelcase Leap is also a great chair, as is the Gesture. Steelcase is less prescriptive about how it supports you compared to Aeron. Headrest is a big plus. Typically, in a desk work ergonomic scenario, you do not want any tension from holding yourself in position (which rules out exercise balls, saddle chairs, etc.) It also rules out “perfectly upright” chairs. Yes, it’s bad to sit that long, but holding a position for 4 hours is worse.

Anthros. Sitting in anything else now kills my back.

Yoga actually.

Try spinalis chairs, but to me it was less comfortable so it was harder to focus on the task

Anthros. https://www.anthros.com/

I work in IT. Have for a long time now. I often spend half my day or more at a desk working on a computer. As my career developed I found myself less active. I was quite active and fit in my youth so I didn't think much of it until I started having serious back pain. Decades of neglect caught up to me and I found myself in immense pain from... Doing nothing.

After a few scary incidents of thankfully temporary disability I was motivated enough to figure out what was wrong and learn how I could fix it. I came across the typical advice of course. Stretch. Train the body to be stronger and more flexible. Be more active. Sit less. All good and necessary. I still had to sit a lot though. Even with a sit/stand desk I'm going to want to sit down sometimes.

I did a lot of reading and almost as much testing before concluding that Anthros is the best office chair currently available. I now have a few years of experience with one and that experience has only reinforced that opinion.

It's designed by folks who developed expertise on ergonomics working in the wheelchair industry. There's a lot of copy on their website about all that and more info given in interviews / podcasts. Marketing aside the point is that it's not just another funky chair following trends. There are evidence-backed reasons for the design.

The pelvic support is what fully convinced me. Pelvic support is to lumbar support what not-getting-stabbed is to a field tourniquet. Sitting with my legs engaged and my pelvis supported for the first time wrinkled my brain in ways similar to the first time I wore prescription lenses. After maybe fifteen minutes of "active sitting" I felt relief in my back instead of pain.

It is genuinely shocking how much of an impact a chair has made in my recovery from sedentary self-induced injury. From spending hours trying to get comfortable in chairs not designed to meaningfully support human bodies. I thought my problem area was my mid-back and core muscles. It was my whole spine. I still sit like an idiot sometimes but doing so in the Anthros is uncomfortable and that prompts me to either stand for a bit or take a walk. When I'm using the tool properly I am comfortable and pain-free.

Now that I've made myself sound like a paid shill here are some things I don't like about the Anthros chair:

1. It's expensive. I had to save for months to buy one responsibly. $2,000 for a chair is a lot to ask. I am happy with my purchase and I've recommended them to friends who have complained about back pain. Maybe the cost is justified. Maybe not. I'm too ignorant of the particulars to be able to say. Either way: it's expensive to the point I take issue with the cost.
2. The armrests adjust their horizontal placement too easily. There's about two inches of play in their forward/backward position and four "notches" of inward/outward movement at about three degrees per notch. The flexibility here is nice but there's no locking mechanism for these adjustments and I found myself adjusting them accidentally all the time. I'm sure this could be countered with claims about accessibility and/or that this is only an issue when I'm using the tool improperly (sitting poorly). Even if valid points: this still feels like an area that could see improvement. It feels cheap in ways that a $2,000 chair shouldn't. It's the only thing that feels cheap on the chair but I still notice it after years of use. It doesn't bother me as much now that I'm used to it and I've encountered it less as my sitting habits have improved BUT it has remained a complaint since day one.
3. I think it's kind of ugly. This is a bit petty but I just don't care for the look of the thing. It's fine but I feel it's kind of an eyesore. I've had chairs that looked cool and fit my sense of style. The Anthros looks like I stole it from a hospital or something.

That said: if I have my way, until and unless someone develops something better, I will always have an Anthros chair at my desk. If I ever own a business where it makes sense to buy desk chairs for people then I'll only buy Anthros chairs. If I could gift one to everyone I know then I would.

I've done a lot of physical therapy to rehabilitate my back, abdominal core, and pelvis/hips from working at a desk. I'm significantly healthier than I was a few years ago. I attribute some of that progress to the chair. I'm confident I could've made the same progress without it but also confident that progress would've taken longer. Without the chair I'd still have been fighting bad habits I didn't even know I had. I also wouldn't reasonably have been able to change those habits as effectively.

I cannot recommend the Anthros chair strongly enough. Nothing else even comes close.

What helped me with back pain the most was learning how to properly sit in a chair.

Basically, you want to sit down on your taint.

What you do is place your feet under the chair, stick your ass out like you're twerking it, and proceed to sit down so that your taint is the point of contact between you and the chair. Make sure your hips are pushed all the way to the back of the chair and your feet can rest comfortably on the floor with your knees at a 90 degree angle.

This will align you spine properly, and prevent your spine from being overly stressed. It also relieves pressure on the hips as well.

Not sure if this will help with your condition, but it should help to relieve any stress points and align everything into a position where your body isn't struggling to keep everything in pace. The longer you sit like this, the more benefits you will see.

I've been using a secret labs omega for the last decade and been very happy with it. I got the fabric instead of leather and 👍 no complaints

Bought a used Steelcase Leap chair 9 years ago to deal with pain caused by disc problems. It's built like a tank, amazingly adjustable, and completely alleviated my lower back pain. Still using it.

I use two chairs, a regular office chair and a kneeling chair. I switch between them regularly.

I messed up my back years ago. Sometimes I work sitting down for hours. Here’s how I’ve managed:

• Physical therapy and Gold Medal Bodies to learn how to move and strengthen what needs to be strong
• Watching and following Olivier Girard videos. His approach requires naturally using certain muscles while sitting, so maybe this won’t work for everyone. His approach also means that breaks are a must. I cannot sit for too long. Every half-an-hour or so I get up and move.
• Getting good enough chairs and desks. I followed Girard’s guide to buying chairs and desks. This means I can sometimes work for more than half-an-hour straight by lifting my desk so that I can work standing.

Hope this helps! And best of luck with your back

So I was wondering if anyone here with lower back issues has found a chair that helped them sit?

Yes and no.

Sitting is the/my enemy. So, I use an adjustable standing desk with the best standing mat I could afford.

When I can/wan to sit, I sit, while the rest of the time I have the desk at my usual standing height and use the standing mat instead of the chair. The standing mat is key to help reduce fatigue & stress (feet, legs and back). I may also put it at different heights from time to time, depending how... tired my back is.

At least as important, I try to never sit longer than an hour.
I will get up and walk (either going out for a real long walk) or just be standing and walking in my home office. I may even dictate draft notes to a pocket recorder while I'm doing that.

As you can imagine, the chair is not the most important for me in that configuration but I do have one. It is one of those gaming chairs. Just a model for people that are well over my weight (so it's rather firm). It's ugly as hell (and quite large) but it offers all the adjustments I need : height and the ability to lean back as much as I wish (it can almost lay flat). I removed the arm rests that are rather... useless and cumbersome. When I sit, I also use a little cushiony stand thingy, on which I rest my feet at a slight angle. This seem to quite help my back too.

Imho, your doctor should be able to suggest you some better chairs than any random stranger online could... even if it's me ;)

Still, I hope this can help you a little bit: I know too well how our back can be a bitch.

15 years ago I got a then expensive to me Herman Miller Aeron, i replaced the back support and the gas seat height strut last year as they'd broken and failed respectively.

I suffer low back pain if I'm not mindful of supporting my lower back.

I liked that I could easily repair the chair (watched a YT video about strut removal)

that and passive stretching each morning, alas my laziness...

I always loved to think that I never get these serious back troubles, because having ADHD causes me to move around all the time. Really ever other minute I need to switch positions. I work in IT and in my home office all the time. Currently I am not sure anymore, because I feel some little back pain sometimes.

For you my recommendation is to constantly change chairs. Office chair, gaming chair, large ball with the ring on the floor, then without the ring, knee chair, wobbler etc.

And standing in between. You absolutely should have an electric height adjustable desk, so you can always go high or low without effort.

I get where you're going with that saddle, but I urge you to not consider that one. You really don't want your bodyweight on your undercarriage like that; the stirrups on a real saddle are necessary and functional parts of your riding posture for good reason. Plus, see issues people have with repeated bad posture on bicycle seats for the same reason.

I used the saddle and the last one. The latter felt better for my back, but strained knees quite some, the former doesn't seem to do much for posture, but the back feels a bit better now.

The cheapest possible office chair I could find, with the cheapest possible lumbar support I could find. Also some covers for the bottom. I think all in all they're like 60-70 euro. Adjusting the pillow up and down as needed is key to me.

It's seriously more comfortable than a chair that cost me 120 euro before this one. And don't get me started on gaming chairs.

I sat on those herman miller ones with the fancy looking back spines at work for like 6 months at least. No difference to me. Those are better quality but the price is ridiculous. Could buy a billion of the cheap sets for that price.

how are you with standing? I say this because my wifes issue is more about one position over time than any particular one. Anything but laying down is limited in time and even if she mixes it up she will eventually need to lay down. That being said mixing it up is what works the best. If you have a standing desk and a barstool kind of office chair that you can sit at ergonomically at the standing height that is ergonomic. Well then you can switch between standing and sitting pretty easy because the chair is so high. So you don't have to fall into the chair or rise up as much out of it. I find the height of the chair ends up being about but height so easy to get into. I don't know if it would be better for you but food for thought.