Hi Lifehacker, What ever happened to kneeling stools? It seems like they were all the rage a few years ago and now you never hear about them. Also, are they a viable alternative to a standing desk? Thanks, Head Over Kneels Kneeling stools and chairs are still kicking around — a cursory Google Shopping search reveals an abundance of available models. Like any office fad, you tend to hear less about these things once the hype has died down, but that doesn't necessary mean they've fallen out of favour. There are several health benefits that a kneeling stool provides over a regular office chair. These mainly centre around the concept of active sitting versus passive sitting. In a normal chair, your body tends to be either slumped and relaxed or tense and straight; neither of which are ideal postures. This can eventually lead to spinal problems and various other ailments linked to a sedentary lifestyle. By contrast, a kneeling stool promotes active sitting through continual, controlled movement.
Because the upper body is self-supported it has to balance itself which encourages the sitter to use their abdominal and back muscles. It's like a mini core workout. Other cited benefits include better blood circulation via increased limb motion, improved concentration (i.e. — no slumping/vegeing out) and almost double the amount of calories burned per hour. A lot of this could just be marketing pap to sell kneeling chairs, but independent research does support a few of these claims. For example, a scientific study published in the National Center for Biotechnology Information found that lumbar curvature on an ergonomically designed kneeling chair is definitely superior to a standard computer chair: This study suggests that ergonomically designed kneeling chairs set at +20 degrees inclination do maintain standing lumbar curvature to a greater extent than sitting on a standard computer chair with an overall mean difference of 7.633 degrees . As to whether kneeling stools are a viable alternative to the standing desk would largely depend on the individual.
On paper, a standing desk probably aids movement and posture more, but only if you use them correctly. There's a temptation to lean on standing desks with your elbows supporting your weight (it's something I've been personally guilty of at the tail-end of each day.) Plus, if you have a convertible model you might end up using it like a normal desk more than originally intended. A kneeling stool, meanwhile, requires upper body balance at all times. There's no way to "cheat" when you're feeling tired. If you have questionable will power, we think a kneeling stool is going to be more beneficial in the long run. Got your own question you want to put to Lifehacker? Send it using our contact form.Do you have to twist and reach for tools? Do you have hemorrhoids? Your body is talking to you and you should be listening. Many craftspeople have posture and body position problems. Ramazzini, the founder of occupational medicine and author of a groundbreaking book on diseases of workers published in 1713 writes rather cruelly (and the man was a great humanitarian in his time) about the effects of working posture and position in regard to cobblers and tailors: “It is a laughable sight to see those guilds of cobblers and tailors on their own special feast-days when they march in procession two by two through the city or escort to the tomb
some member of their guild who has died; yes, it makes one laugh to see that troop of stooping, round-shouldered, limping men swaying from side to side; they look as though they had all been carefully selected for an exhibition of these infirmities” (283). How you sit, stand, move, work can affect your body in the short and the long term. Learn from others: don’t reinvent the wheel with your own health and body. An old saying runs, “the truly smart person learns from their mistakes, the truly wise one from the mistakes of others” Do some research, talk to your doctor, an office furniture supplier, your insurance agent and your OSHA office about ergonomics and your working positions. There is a lot of information available for free from governments, and on safety and ergonomics sites on the internet. We all know craftspeople with back pain, workshops where the layout is nonsensical, that have awkward reaches for tools, bad lighting and innumerable other problems. How your shop is set up, the working procedures and workspace affect the rest of your life.
Here’s what was wrong in a 1993 ergonomics study of a jewelry factory. Many workers used awkward postures involving the arms, shoulders, wrists, neck and lower back. Even if someone did slightly different jobs in the shop during the day the postures and movements needed were similar, thus adding up to a sustained load on the body. Hand tool use was linked with a number of risk factors (for example: plier use and filing which forced the wrist out of its neutral position into a much more stressed one). Other problems included poor back posture, insufficient lighting or use of magnification, inappropriate tools and workstation design (easily remedied by more modern readily available commercial alternatives) and finally disorganized working areas (Grant et al. 91-93). Many of these same problems can be found in craft studios of all different kinds. Take breaks and change your working position (i.e. height of chair and work surface) now and then. If you do a lot of sitting get up every 45 minutes to move around and change positions.
Waller suggests that “Any activities that strain back or wrist muscles, or cause noise or vibration, should be done for only short periods of time (e.g. half-hour stretches) and alternated with another activity for a similar time span. This gives the body a chance to recover” (Waller 20). Factory work, particularly at stamping presses and similar mechanical, repetitive jobs can be especially dangerous for workers. One of the themes that recurs in ergonomic analyses of crafts factories is that much damage could be avoided by having different working heights, and that people often perform the wrong task at an inappropriate height. Some tasks should be done at waist height and others elsewhere. Particularly if you are doing the same job over and over again all day, as occurs in a production situation, it can help dramatically to work at different heights during the day. This may mean different workstations, but also may mean easily adjustable chairs and tables. Get a headset telephone so you don’t hold your body in a strange position while you talk on the phone and continue to work.