Ergonomics
Posted: October 20th, 2021, 9:56 pm
I'm 38. When I was, I dunno, 24 or so, I fell 100' out of a tree and fractured three vertebrae (including 2 compression fractures) -- among other things (also broke ribs and crushed my lungs...but I still walked a 1/2 mile back to camp with amnesia, haha!) I healed well; I was young. Didn't do PT or anything. Just bed rest and having hot women at the commune sponge bathe me.
Fast forward ten or so years and I started having back problems, I think mainly because I was way overdoing it on: writing a book, gaming a ton, working at a job on the computer...and then, the straw that broke the camel's back...working on a farm AND chopping wood for winter. First it was pinched nerves in my neck and a pinched cervical spine. Had a back surgery I'm not sure I even needed. Then, all healed up, next year at wood cutting time (racing the wood splitter with my Fiskars) I threw out my lower back/SI joint.
Amidst all of this I was still finishing that book, playing too much DC, and trying like hell to figure out how I could be on the computer and not hurt myself. Learned a ton of stuff, including about muscle imbalances and how to remedy them, about common misconceptions with tendinitis/tendinosis, and...I bought a ton of shit off Amazon. $400 concave ergo keyboards, $250 roller bar mouse, ergo mice, trackpad, Staples mesh chair, Amazon gaming chair, $350 saddle stool, made a standing desk, made my own chair with armrests I bolted on, arm-rests that bolted onto the desk, laptop stands, about 15 different keyboard variations, and a whole bunch of exercises/stretches/surgeries/injections. Phew...
But now..after making my own desk setup and buying juuuust a couple more chairs with my dwindling sugar momma funds I have finally landed on something that actually facking works. Check this shit out....I'll post a vid soon.
Chair is called a Steelcase Gesture. It retails for just under $1200 (more for a headrest) and is just facking dope. I spent a ton of time researching chairs lately (there's actually an entire office chairs subreddit lol) and was drawn to this one because of the smoothness of it's recline function (so I can fidget and kinda rock)...but mostly for it's *ARMS*. This bitch has adjustable arms like no other chair. A small subset of chairs have 4d arms, which means the arms can go up, and the armrests can pivot, slide forward/backward, and side to side. But these go a step forward and allow you basically full motion control of arms, going both lower and higher than other chairs so your arms can actually raise to the height where you can read a book or use a smartphone and not slouch.
Chair of course has a lot of other features, like the seat pan can slide forward or backwards, chair goes up and down, and you can set tilt positions/tilt tension. And it has a fancy lumbar cushioning system that works in conjunction with the above settings so you can kinda decide how much pressure is on your back. I find that in this chair I have a more active but relaxed seating position than other chairs. I'm definitely relaxed, but I'm also kind of holding myself up against the back of the chair.
The armrests are also super fun, because whenever I feel like adjusting my position (you can easily sit cross legged, or even indian style in this chair) I can just quickly push the arms into a different arrangement and have some variety of sitting. My only complaint is that the arms' vertical position only operates on preset set points, and sometimes I feel like what I want to be level with my kb/mouse is right in between those points.
$1000+ chair, got it for $400 plus tax at a local liquidator. Only downside I've noticed so far is a light 2" smudge and I think I put that on it on the ride home in the hatchback....lol
Now I gotta get rid of some of these other chairs in my 10 x 12 man-shed:
Fast forward ten or so years and I started having back problems, I think mainly because I was way overdoing it on: writing a book, gaming a ton, working at a job on the computer...and then, the straw that broke the camel's back...working on a farm AND chopping wood for winter. First it was pinched nerves in my neck and a pinched cervical spine. Had a back surgery I'm not sure I even needed. Then, all healed up, next year at wood cutting time (racing the wood splitter with my Fiskars) I threw out my lower back/SI joint.
Amidst all of this I was still finishing that book, playing too much DC, and trying like hell to figure out how I could be on the computer and not hurt myself. Learned a ton of stuff, including about muscle imbalances and how to remedy them, about common misconceptions with tendinitis/tendinosis, and...I bought a ton of shit off Amazon. $400 concave ergo keyboards, $250 roller bar mouse, ergo mice, trackpad, Staples mesh chair, Amazon gaming chair, $350 saddle stool, made a standing desk, made my own chair with armrests I bolted on, arm-rests that bolted onto the desk, laptop stands, about 15 different keyboard variations, and a whole bunch of exercises/stretches/surgeries/injections. Phew...
But now..after making my own desk setup and buying juuuust a couple more chairs with my dwindling sugar momma funds I have finally landed on something that actually facking works. Check this shit out....I'll post a vid soon.
Chair is called a Steelcase Gesture. It retails for just under $1200 (more for a headrest) and is just facking dope. I spent a ton of time researching chairs lately (there's actually an entire office chairs subreddit lol) and was drawn to this one because of the smoothness of it's recline function (so I can fidget and kinda rock)...but mostly for it's *ARMS*. This bitch has adjustable arms like no other chair. A small subset of chairs have 4d arms, which means the arms can go up, and the armrests can pivot, slide forward/backward, and side to side. But these go a step forward and allow you basically full motion control of arms, going both lower and higher than other chairs so your arms can actually raise to the height where you can read a book or use a smartphone and not slouch.
Chair of course has a lot of other features, like the seat pan can slide forward or backwards, chair goes up and down, and you can set tilt positions/tilt tension. And it has a fancy lumbar cushioning system that works in conjunction with the above settings so you can kinda decide how much pressure is on your back. I find that in this chair I have a more active but relaxed seating position than other chairs. I'm definitely relaxed, but I'm also kind of holding myself up against the back of the chair.
The armrests are also super fun, because whenever I feel like adjusting my position (you can easily sit cross legged, or even indian style in this chair) I can just quickly push the arms into a different arrangement and have some variety of sitting. My only complaint is that the arms' vertical position only operates on preset set points, and sometimes I feel like what I want to be level with my kb/mouse is right in between those points.
$1000+ chair, got it for $400 plus tax at a local liquidator. Only downside I've noticed so far is a light 2" smudge and I think I put that on it on the ride home in the hatchback....lol
Now I gotta get rid of some of these other chairs in my 10 x 12 man-shed: