Ergonomic Positioning of Your Office Chair at Work
How to Properly Position Your Office Chair
for Ergonomics and Productivity in the Workplace
When seated in your office chair, proper positioning is a key element in keeping up good blood flow and body health. Movement is critical to good ergonomics. To keep the proper posture while constantly moving throughout the day takes some practice. It all starts with knowing how to properly position your back and legs.
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Backrest:
Start by adjusting your backrest angle and the seat pan placing the torso and the upper legs at a 90 degrees or slightly more reclined position. This provides for good lower back support. Studies have found that the slightly reclined position is the most desired posture and a proper tilt mechanism, preferably with locking positions is critical to practicing good ergonomics.
Proper lumbar support is necessary for prevention of muscle and nervous system issues when seated at your workstation. Without this prevention, serious injuries can occur and workplace production can be completely put on hold. Proper lumbar support can be found in most good office chairs. Make sure when shopping for your chair that it has the back support needed for your work hours.
Foot Placement:
Having your feet firmly on the floor is very important. If your feet are not touching the floor, even with seat height adjustment, you will need to find a footrest or platform to rest your feet on. When viewing a picture of this posture on the human body, you will notice that 90 degrees is the overall effect. The arms are at an angle 90 degrees from the chest, the lower abdomen is 90 degrees from the lower leg and the upper leg is 90 degrees angled from the lower leg.
Computer Monitor Height:
To keep the ergonomics in mind, placing your monitor at the proper height for viewing and making sure to keep the recommended manufacturer distance from the computer monitor is also important. Your eye level should be direct to the center of the monitor from the top and bottom and side to side to lessen neck twisting. The monitor should be adjusted accordingly to the seat height to get the right angles for comfort ability.
The top of your monitor should be at or below the normal vision line. Many people make the mistake of placing their monitor up higher or on a platform to save space. However, this is very damaging, not only to your eyes but especially to muscles in your neck. Saving your neck from constantly being put in the wrong postition will save you from many back problems later on.
Elbow and Wrist Placement:
You probably spend a great deal of time typing or using a mouse device in your workstation. Relax your arms allowing them to hang down naturally from your shoulders. Next bring your forearms up so that they are positioned parallel with the ground. You want your wrist to be in a neutral position, very relaxed. Place your chair in front of your workstation desk and adjust the height of the seat so that your elbows are just at or above the keyboard height.
Also check your elbow placement. They should rest comfortably at or above the working surface. You can get the proper height by varying your keyboard tray height or using seat height adjustment to get the proper placement for your elbows. This is a very important feature in proper ergonomics for those working at a computer, typing or using the mouse for long periods of time. Your wrist needs to stay in a relaxed position and the elbow height to desk height should help this motion become easier.
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Summary
Also know that when you are performing different tasks, your chair might require adjustment with each job to adequately stay in the ergonomic positioning needed. When you are typing at your computer your body is in a completely different form than when stapling, using the mouse or taking notes. Your chair may need to adjust to these tasks at different workstations and some tweaking of the chair is required.
With the hours that employees spend seated in their office chair in this, the computer age, it is important to remember to practice good ergonomics and keep the correct positioning throughout the day. Ergonomics are the key to a healthy body, back and neck when working long hours in your task chair. When you sit in your office chair, you should adjust it to the proper position first, remembering a simple checklist of setup motions and enjoy more comfort ability as well as productivity.