[Closed] Kneeling chairs

I've had issues with my lower back, prolapsed disc and sciatica. I found the kneel chair to be great. Massively reduces the strain I get in a normal chair. I still need to get up and walk around every so often, but it's night and day for me compared with the normal chair.

Interesting!

I'm still experimenting with office seating. I'm standing as I type this but started the day on a saddle stool with a back rest. I had high hopes for the saddle stool as it allows your legs to hang straighter and opens up the hip angle/reduces stretch on glute muscles etc.

I was always just worried about strain on knees with kneeling chairs, I think the general consensus now is just to move every twenty minutes and do something to counteract whatever posture you've been hunched in!

I bought one second-hand not long into lockdown, as I was getting backpain - chap I bought it from said don't use it all day to start with, you'll be using muscles you don't normally use.

So I used it all day that first day and had a really sore back - can't say I wasn't warned. 🙂

I'm on it now for the first time since then, will aim for an hour a day to start - keep you posted. 🙂

BAMBACH SADDLE SEATS

I had one at work following spinal surgery due to sciatic pain caused by herniated discs. With the add on arms and back support. I’m far more productive because I’m sat upright and in an “attack” position rather than slouching.

Worth the money IMHO and also tax deductible cause it’s required for your job.

Chiming in with my usual recommendation, a discovery made when I was suffering with a herniated disc a few years ago and now hate sitting on anything else: HAG Capisco from Back in Action

Tried one a few years back but they are just as easy to slouch in as any other chair unless the desk (and monitor(?)) you are working at are the right height. In the end getting a secondary monitor & stand for the laptop was far more effective than the chair.

I don't use one but I'm sure they're better than normal chairs.
Really the key is to make sure you keep moving around as much as possible, and stand up to use your PC once in a while if that's an option. Being still in the same position for hours on end is not good for anyone.

Another HAG Capisco user here - with added foot ring and 265mm gas lift - also from Back in Action.

Wonderful chair that works really well with a standing desk arrangement (70% stand), and when in standing mode I use the children's large rubber mat/jigsaw pieces.

A chum is a jeweller who had back issues, since changing his desk and chair to the Capisco hasn't suffered and wishes he'd done it sooner. Meanwhile I've recommended the rubber mat standing pads as a cheap alternative to a 'standing deskmat' to a few other 'standers' and they've all found them absorbing and not tiring on the legs.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

I've seen a lot of ads for these chairs, but I haven't heard any real reviews.
Do a workout every couple of hours and get yourself a good orthopedic mattress, many people do not even realize that back pain, which may not necessarily appear immediately in the morning, is almost 90% due to improperly chosen mattress.
Choose a mattress solely for your parameters and the pain will subside, and your sleep will be better.
Good luck

I have a very cheap one.Is it orthopedically better? Does it make me sit correctly or prevent me slouching? Probably not. Is it making me better? Don't think so. And most people would say, that means it's failed.

But it's comfier than a normal chair for my already horribly ****ed back. I don't need it to make me better (though, it'd be nice), I just want to be able to sit at a PC for a couple of hours without falling to bits and I've not managed that in a normal chair for years.

Do a workout every couple of hours

A full workout? Every couple of hours?

Choose a mattress solely for your parameters and the pain will subside, and your sleep will be better.
Good luck

Good luck indeed. If you hadn't noticed, mattresses are expensive, and there is zero consensus out there as to what the 'correct' mattress is for back pain. Some say soft, some say hard, some say memory foam etc. etc

Sorry, I'm just exceptionally grumpy, have been dogged by back and hip pain for months, pouring money into physios who appear to just be ****ing guessing what might be wrong, and depending what day it is or what phase the moon is in, workouts can either do nothing, make it feel better, or as yesterday's experiments did, make it much worse ☹️

Sinking £800 into one of those HAG chairs looks to me like another depressing expensive waste of money...

*Anecdote alert* Have started using my second-hand £20-off-Schpock kneeler for an hour a day and my back has felt a bit better more or less straight away. Going for a walk in the evening, my back would start to become uncomfortable on the outward leg and be downright painful by the time we got home, ladt couple of days it's only started to become uncomfortable as we near home.

I've little doubt much of this is psychosomatic, and likely as much to be down to back awareness and moving around more, but there you go. 🙂

Tried one a few years back but they are just as easy to slouch in as any other chair

Wife had one and that was my observation.

I'm actually enjoying sitting on a gym ball this morning, I never understood the benefits as you still have your legs at 90 degrees so doesn't really improve your seated posture, but I am enjoying the freedom to move and bounce around 😎 (combined with some upbeat tunes).

I never understood the benefits as you still have your legs at 90 degrees so doesn’t really improve your seated posture

I thought the point of a gym ball is that you have to engage your core to stay balanced on it as it's inherently unstable.

13thfloormonk, don't apologize I understand you perfectly, about a year ago I was suffering the same way.
I tried a lot of things, from sleeping on regular boards to water mattresses.
You just need a good consultation, with experts in the mattress world, I'm sure they will help you.