How many of us feel as if we have been moulded to our chairs after hours of passive sitting in front of our computer screens?

70% of all our clients that come to see us at Stretch complain of lower back pains. Most of the people have weak but tight muscles in the lower Lumbar structures due to poor functioning from the strain of over pressurising those delicate structures.

There are so many statistics from Government Health and Safety agencies stating that two thirds of all office workers are or have experienced back pain. The cost to industry is unacceptably high. Many people simply live with their pains choosing to ignore the inevitable consequences from the wear and tear, poor posture, poor mechanics and general inactivity of those multi-layered lumbar tissues.
 
Our bodies were designed primarilly for movement- walking/running/climbing etc. Sitting is therefore an unnatural "inactivity". Jungle dwellers don't have chairs- they simply squat on their haunches- which by the way is a super way to stretch out your lower back structures. For those of you with tight achilles tendons this could be a difficult exercise. But try it anyway, introducing a few hip rotations when you are crouched down.
 
Ideally,what chair should we be sitting on at the office?
 
There are not that many that I can truely reccommend. Even the most expensive chairs are not designed for anything other than passive sitting. If you are like me, a somewhat restless soul, sitting passively soon becomes agitating. I tend to start fidgeting after 10 minutes, crossing legs causing further postural dysfunctions.

You may have come across the bouncy balls that some enlightened people are sitting on. They are fun to sit upon and allow plenty of movement. It may look a bit incongruous in some offices but they work. In fact, one needs a chair or seat where one can actively bounce on.

Remember it is those precious intervertebral disks which act like cushions for the spine, which are part of our structural shock absorbtion system that we need to keep plump and healthy. These delicate cartilagenous disks are filled with a nucleus of water and minerals that are constantly being flushed and replenished as we move around. When statically seated, these disks remain compressed and become slowly dehydrated, this can lead to a thinning and bulging of the disk which can cause irritation on the sensitive nerve roots, located at the base of each vertebra. This disruption of the kinetic chain will lead to multiple muscle spasms and refferal pains in other body parts. Indeed a slippery  slope.
Judith Aston, Americas Ergonomics expert, reccommends getting up off the chair every 30 minutes to avoid this compression syndrome.

Personally, I would advise people to sit on a Swopper, an orthopaedically designed stool made in Germany which has a spring loaded base for allowing you to bounce and swing from side to side whilst having the pelvis perfectly supported in whatever position you are in. It is the only chair that actually moves in tandem with your spine. The sizt bones are always evenly distributed on the chair, which has a mushroom shape for ultimate support.

Swopper has just bought out a junior model with a smaller spring load for kids and adults up to 50kgs. In my mind, having worked in the pain management field for years now there is no better active sitting device on the market.
In Germany, where this chair has been used for 5 years now , it has won every award for design and ergonomics. Even the national Health Service in the UK is reccommending them for people with chronic back aches.

So you CAN use a chair to exercise and strengthen your spinal muscles proividing you are being supported symmetrically and you are able to move multi-directionally. It could help to prevent the numerous cases of exaggerated spinal curves and tremendously taught back musculature, which simply does not get better with age!

When making the purchase of your next chair bear in mind that Active Dynamic Sitting is the only way to maintain strength and stability in your spine at the work place.
 
Stretch Ltd have Swoppers to try out at their office. Do come along for a trial.