Pretty much everyone who works an office job has heard the news: Sitting eight hours a day is killing you. Okay, maybe it's not killing you today, but study after study show that sitting is detrimental to your health, even if you try to counter-balance it with a lot of exercise in your spare time. What do you need to make a change? The answer might be an adjustable standing desk, one that lets you easily transition between sitting and standing—or better, one that tracks just how long you've been sitting and tells you when it's time to switch positions. Another solution might be to walk while you work, and indeed, there are now work stations that allow you to do just that. Of course, standing or walking while you work for eight or ten hours a day is unreasonable. At some point, you'll want to sit at least for a little while. That's where active chairs come in. These alternatives to traditional office chairs adjust your posture by engaging your legs and core muscles, so that sitting becomes active.
Plain old yoga balls come to mind as a decent alternative to a traditional office seat, but they aren't usually designed for office spaces, and they certainly aren't the only option. In fact, there are some great furniture choices out there that combine healthy options with attractive design (sorry, yoga ball). I've rounded up four of the more interesting alternative desks and chairs. The right one can transform your office or work space from a sloucher's paradise into a more healthy and fitter environment. Stir Kinectic Desk $2,990–$4,190 Sit-stand desks typically aren't very smart, but the Stir Kinectic Desk is. It knows how long you've been sitting and prompts you to stand up when it's time, and then it raises itself to a custom height that you set. A smart, built-in touch screen uses Bluetooth to connect to Fitbit devices so the desk knows when you're approaching and knows if you've had a long run this morning and could use some time in your chair. There are two versions of the Stir desk: the original Stir Kinectic F1 (shown) and the new, less expensive M1.
The major differences are in shape—the F1 is rectangular while the M1 has a curved edge—as well as price and material quality (the F1 is hand finished). Technogym Wellness Ball – Active Sitting $225 When you do need to sit at work, there are healthier alternatives to standard chairs, options that keep your core engaged and your back strong. We love the Technogym Wellness Ball for its simple design but smart features, like a removable and durable anti-bacterial slip cover. A weighted bottom also keeps the ball from rolling across the room when you stand up. It's a little pricier than other yoga ball chairs, but it's also designed with more consideration for what you actually need in a stability ball chair in the office, rather than the gym. LifeSpan TR1200-DT5 Treadmill Desk Combination $1,499 If you never take a break, eat meals at your desk, and answer your mobile phone in the bathroom, then you might be a workaholic, and you probably need some help squeezing more movement into your day.
A treadmill desk like the LifeSpan TR1200-DT5 might be the answer. The desk on this unit isn't directly attached to the treadmill, so it doesn't shake during use. The TR1200-DT5 model counts, records, and displays the actual number of steps you take (in addition to total distance traveled), and has a feature that automatically stops the belt when you step off. While treadmill desks aren't everyone's cup of tea—nor are they suitable for certain kinds of work—they can help very busy and time-strapped professionals stay healthier. Buoy $199 After listening to this episode of 99 Percent Invisible, I became obsessed with balance stools. I've been hunting for an affordable but beautiful one to add to my home office desk, and the Buoy might be it. Balance stools like the Buoy are active chairs, similar to yoga balls. The Buoy is designed to tilt from 5 to 12 degrees, wobble, and swivel. One of the benefits of tilting stools is that they get your spine and body out of the C shape that it tends to be in when you sit in traditional chairs, which is better for you in that time you do need to sit because—let's be real—you can't stand all day long.
(Truth be told, I really want this stunning balance stool by Thorsten Franck, but it's not available anywhere.) 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).