Everyone knows that sitting for hours in the office is bad for the back, but we rarely do anything about it. Backcare Awareness Week, which runs from 6 to 12 October, is a good time to change your usual office chair for one that offers better ergonomic support. But there are a lot to choose from, so to help you out, here’s our pick. 1. Humanscale Freedom Office Chair, £999, John Lewis With a backrest that automatically adapts to your body shape and headrest that moves according to how far you recline, the Humanscale Freedom Office Chair offers the latest in ergonomic technology. Plus, the snug cushions mould to the shape of your body. At nearly a thousand pounds, it’s a lot to cough up for a chair, but worthwhile if you want one of the best on the market. 2. Herman Miller Aeron Office Chair, £925, John Lewis If you are a design buff, this is the one for you. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has an Aeron in its permanent collection, so its design credentials are well established.
But this chair is not just pretty to look at – its cushions are made from Pellicle, a high tech material which avoids heat build-ups, helping prevent muscular discomfort. 3. Comfort Operator Chair, £49, Office Furniture Online It’s not a thing of beauty, but the Comfort Operator Chair is good value for its specification. The three levers allow you to vary the height of the chair and tilt the back rest and seat. Also, the curved foam provides good ergonomic support. This is the reliable Volkswagen – rather than the flashy Ferrari – of the office chair world. Available with or without arms. 4. HÅG Capisco Saddle Chair, £291, Wellworking If you find yourself fidgeting in your usual seat, try the Saddle Chair. The unique design, modelled on a horse rider’s saddle, allows you to sit equally comfortably whether facing forward or turned to the side. Free movement does not have to cost the planet though – this product is made from recycled car bumpers. 5. Classic Balance Ball Chair, £80, amazon
You are sure to be greeted with a few raised eyebrows when you bring this into the office, but bemusement could soon turn into envy. Not only is the Classic Balance Ball Chair comfortable, but the act of balancing on it also gives you a powerful core-strengthening workout. 6. Herman Miller Sayl Office Chair, £383, Wellworking Effective spine and neck support needn’t result in a sweaty back. Inspired by the design principles of suspension bridges and modelled on a ship’s sail, the webbed chair back allows good air circulation, keeping you cool. Comes in four colours. 7. Markus Swivel Chair, £130, Ikea This is one of the cheapest executive style office chairs on the market. Offering easy height adjustment and a lockable tilt function – plus a headrest for good neck support – you get all the basics for a reasonable price. Also, this product comes with a 10 year guarantee, so it won’t risk your hard earned cash. 8. Back App Ergonomic Stool, £556, Back2
When you sit on the Back App your feet are placed on the footboard rather than the floor. This allows the chair to rotate around as you move, allowing a greater freedom of movement than that offered by conventional office chairs. At first this can make your lower back feel tired, but after a week or so this should go away. For wacky style with green credentials, go for the HÅG Capisco Saddle Chair. If you are on more of a budget, the Comfort Operator or the Markus Swivel Chairs are your best bet. Office chair technophiles with money to spend should consider the Humanscale Freedom. But for sheer workmanship and iconic design, the Aeron is my top pick. IndyBest product reviews are unbiased, independent advice you can trust. On some occasions, we earn revenue if you click the links and buy the products, but we never allow this to bias our coverage. The reviews are compiled through a mix of expert opinion and real-world testing Can a Smartphone Really Replace Your Camera?
The Best Pens for Your EDC The Sexy, Mind-Bending Supercars of the '70s The 25 Best Places to Travel in 2017 By now, we’re all vaguely aware that sitting all day will kill us. It’s like smoking or drinking or any other unpopular cause before it — we understand, but we don’t really want to acknowledge it. Doesn’t matter what the science says (things like people who sit all day are 54 percent more likely to die of a heart attack than people who don’t), we’re still not listening. How could we, anyway? Most of us work jobs that require us to stay perched for eight hours a day, often more. Well, we’re not here to tell you to quit. We’re not even here to compel feelings of guilt or to condone alternative lifestyles. We’re here to offer the most practical solution we can think of: a good desk chair. If you’re going to be sitting all day — and unless you want to creep your coworkers out by being the weird guy with a standing desk peeking over his cubicle wall — you might as well have a good place to sit.
Not all desk chairs are created equal. Some — the best — have particularly heightened ergonomic benefits. These include the usual lumbar supports and breathable mesh seats, but as the prices get bigger so do the benefits: think customized size and suspension, extra supports, aesthetics for any office. These 13 great desk chairs might not be the cure for sitting down all day, but they’re a pretty good start. The Office Star is nothing if not a good value. Sure, its base price of $400 is still a little more than you’ll pay for something from IKEA, but what price can you really put on your health? (Also, the chair — and therefore, your health — are currently on sale.) This chair is fully adjustable — up-and-down, side-to-side, a few other ways you didn’t know existed — and even better, it comes with mesh siding for increased breathability (and decreased back sweat). The Alera Elusion could be misconstrued as another simple office chair — that is until you sit in it.
The mesh back panel offers supreme comfort and allows for great breathability. The seat cushion features a waterfall edge designed to eliminate pressure on the legs. The Elusion is also infinitely adjustable and even offers forward tilt. This is not a good looking chair. But it’s $200, which is dirt cheap for a chair that won’t slowly kill you. The lumbar support offers ergonomic comfort and the mesh back makes it an airy, breathable option. Plus, because IKEAs are nearly everywhere, you can take it for a test drive before you commit — a very big selling point considering how much you’re about to use it. The Sayl Chair is Herman Miller’s attempt at an affordable desk chair — which means it’s a huge cut above most other desk chairs in its price range. It was designed by Yves Behar and comes in a few striking colors; it’s made right here in America; it’s cradle to cradle certified (so that the whole thing is more or less recyclable). But because it sits decidedly lower on the spectrum compared to other Herman Miller models, it lacks a lot of the adjustments and customizable features you might expect from the brand.
The strength of Soma’s signature chair is the back. The tall, weirdly shaped spine is manufactured to reduce upper back, neck and shoulder tension while still supporting the lower back; that is, this chair is all about improving your posture. On the downside, it’s not nearly as attractive as some of the other options on this list. Knoll is the undisputed leader in office furniture, in part because they invest so much in design and research. The ReGeneration is un update on the classic Generation chair, which was originally designed by Formway Design, a New Zealand-based firm that took inspiration from the bridges of architect Santiago Calatrava. The result is a chair that curves and flexes to support its load, offering more or less support depending on how you’re sitting: the chair is said to adjust to 270 degrees of posture. Plus, the whole thing clocks in at less than 30 pounds and is environmentally friendly, using corn- and soy-based materials wherever possible. All that comes at a cost, of course — especially if you want add-ons like a lumbar support or aluminum base.
Niels Diffrient was one of America’s best industrial designers, a pioneer in ergonomic design whose Freedom and Liberty chairs are almost iconic. The World Chair is not his masterpiece, but it is a lighter, more approachable evolution on his previous designs. It’s Humanscale’s first-ever mesh chair, and they made it count: the whole thing weighs just 25 pounds and is made from 97 percent recycled material. Plus, it’s completely self-adjusting, which means you can sit back and recline without making any mechanical adjustments. The Chair Against Which All Chairs Are Measured The Aeron is the chair against which all other chairs are measured. First released in 1994, its status is still more or less unchallenged, even by the valiant contenders on this list. In fact, the Aeron is so iconic it has a permanent place in the Museum of Modern Art. The chair has no straight lines because, well, neither does the human body. And it’s mesh — one of the first chairs to employ the breathable ergonomic material.
It’s made out of recyclable materials and is itself 94 percent recyclable. And then there’s the best part: because the Aeron has been around for 20 years and is no longer the top-end model, it’s relatively affordable at $929. The Steelcase Leap is one of the most popular desk chairs in the world. Designed in 1999, the Leap is the culmination of four years of intensive research on how the back is impacted by long sitting sessions. The result of all that research is the LiveBack system, a method by which the seat and back of the chair adjust independently, allowing for complete support. Add that it’s 98 percent recyclable and blanket-wrapped for domestic delivery (instead of boxed, to reduce shipping costs) and you have an explanation for its popularity. Did we expect that the only chair ever to be endorsed by the American Physical Therapy Association would be exciting? No, we expected it to put function over form at every turn. That’s almost entirely true in this case.
It wants to look good — Haworth even commissioned upscale German design shop Ito Design to help — but the result is rather bland. Instead, focus on the science behind the chair, especially the asymmetrical adjustment system designed in conjunction with the Human Performance Institute at the University of Michigan that lets sitters target problem areas and conform the chair to their natural body shapes. The Acuity hits a sweet spot missed by a lot of chairs on this list: it’s both ergonomically sound and aesthetically excellent. This adherence to the tenets of good design resulted in a few cool features, like controls on the side that eliminate the need for cumbersome and hard-to-reach levers. And the leather jacket, which can be placed over the mesh body, dresses it up for the office (even if that makes it a bit warmer to sit on). There’s not a lot of recline, but then again, everyone always told us to sit up straight anyway. If Gordon Gecko was a real person, this would be his office chair.