How to Stop your Chair being a Pain in the Back

A couple of months ago my husband came home with a nice big chair from his office. The company he works for were relocating to a new office and everyone was getting a new chair. The employees were told they could keep their old chairs for their home office – if they wanted to. 

The chair was nice, with a large cushioned seat and back, with height adjustment, lumbar support, arm-rests – and initially I enjoyed sitting in it. However, little by little, I started noticing increasing pain in my shoulders and neck. Over time it became apparent that my husband’s ‘nice old’ chair was causing the discomfort.

Despite the fact that the ‘nice old’ chair had all sorts of ergonomic features to shape itself to my body, these features hadn’t been re-set and aligned to how I was sitting in the chair and very quickly I was causing stresses and strains to parts of my body that I shouldn’t have been.

An ergonomic chair that is ‘in tune’ with your body will eliminate the stresses and strains on your body, it will enable you to focus for longer periods of time, consequently your productivity will improve and the released tension and stress will help make for a healthier you.

Key features of a 3 lever ergonomic chair

• Generous seat and back cushions – wider and longer seats are available depending on your body shape
• Chair backs are typically full length extending from the shoulders to the seat – to promote sitting upright
• The lumbar support in the lower part of the back of the chair should match the natural curve in your spine. Some ergonomic chairs have adjustable lumbar support so the position of the support can be adjusted 
• Adjustable armrests to support your elbows takes pressure off your shoulders and neck
• Seat height adjustability so that your feet can be flat on the floor and your hips and knees are flexed at 90 degrees
• Ability to change the angle of the seat. This ensures that the seat angle is set perfectly ‘in tune’ with your body and can also assist in easing the pressure on hips and thighs
• Seat slide can also be useful to change the depth/length of the seat. When used in conjunction with the seat height this enables the seat to be set correctly for shorter or taller users 

3 lever chairs provide most of these features (except the seat slide which is included on some but is an optional extra on others)

Chair Set-up Guide for 3 Lever Chairs

The first step in setting up your 3 lever ergonomic chair is determined by the normal height of your desktop. All chair settings should ‘stem’ from that.