Ergonomics Series: The Work Chair & Lumbar Support

Ensuring a patient's recovery involves considering the environments where they spend significant time – namely, home and work. These settings can either impede or facilitate the benefits of chiropractic adjustments and physical therapy, and sometimes, they are the source of injuries. This series aims to explore various elements within our surroundings, examining their potential to contribute to injuries and suggesting ways to create a more comfortable and ergonomic living and working environment.

Today, we'll focus on work chairs. Despite abundant advice on adjusting them, there's limited discussion on the reasons behind these features. In common postural injuries where the lower back tends to be consistently bent forward, lumbar support in chairs is a typical solution. However, my experience suggests that the effectiveness of lumbar curves is questionable. In instances where I use an ergonomic chair, I often bypass lumbar support entirely, opting instead to adjust the seat pan to tilt forward or simply sitting at the chair's edge. This encourages the spine to align naturally with the discs, preventing issues like disc protrusion into the spinal cord. Individuals adopting this posture tend to have better outcomes with chiropractic treatments, as their muscles are conditioned to actively support the spine.

Another benefit of sitting on the edge or tilting the seat forward is the alignment that places the knees below the hips. This positioning causes the hip joint to rotate forward, allowing the hip to sit deeper in the joint space. Sitting with hips and knees at the same height can push the joint forward, potentially causing gait alterations, hip clicks, and discomfort.

That concludes our discussion on chairs for today. Future segments will delve deeper into this topic. If you found this information valuable, consider signing up on the website where

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