People who sit for long duration while working or travelling need to have some support for their back. If there is no proper support then your back is going to hurt and degenerate. You may also be left with some debilitating problems if you are not careful here. Now there are some simple solutions to giving your back the required support so that you don’t slouch as much and keep some of the strain or stress off the important areas of your back like the discs and muscles. A lumbar support for an office chair is a simple tool, which is often prescribed to people who sit at a desk for a living.
Why Lumbar support?
The lumbar support for a chair usually comes with elastic bands that can go around a chair of almost all sizes and when you sit back into your chair, it pushes out into your back keeping you from slouching. When most people sit, they tend to let their back somewhat hollow out which leads to slouching. What this does to the lower back is that it takes the curvature that’s supposed to be in your lower back while you are standing upright to actually force that curve to be significantly altered. This wrong curvature puts a lot of pressure on your discs, it forces your muscles to become fatigued and that’s one of the main reasons that people have spinal problems or they feel so stiff, sore and fatigued at the end of the day.
Now when you are seated in a chair that has a lumbar support and you are seated all the way back, the curve in the lumbar support pushes in the back. Therefore, it’s very hard for you to slouch and you are able to maintain the correct curvature in your back. This allows you to do a lot of work for a longer period of time with a significant less amount of fatigue and soreness. There are also other lumbar supports available that you might consider for your car, plane rides or long drives. In case you don’t have a lumbar support you can use a jacket, blanket or a towel and bunch it up behind your back which will give you some support to make you feel better at the end of the trip.
Choosing the best lumbar support for your office or desk chair
So, maybe you have a chair at your home or office and you just need a little bit more back or lumbar support on. You don’t really want to go out and have the expense of getting a whole new chair. Particularly you are not sure which lumbar support you need or is right for you. Check out the table below showing the best and most popular lumbar support options for your office or home chair. If you suffer from coccyx or tailbone pain you may also want to choose a seat cushion for your chair.
Benefit of using a lumbar support for your chair
Incorrect sitting leads to bad posture that leads to irritation and inflammation on the nerves, which we call pinched nerves. When people sit, they sit incorrectly. They usually have a chair, it may be a flat chair or a secretarial chair, but there’s no support on the lower back. So, we sit up against the chair where our curve and out back becomes flattened. In addition, as it becomes flattened, we have a tendency to bring our head forward. Just like we drive without a good support on our lower back, our shoulders become rounded forward; our head becomes anterior causing the weight bearing and stress to the muscles and nerves at the back.
Using a back support pillow and putting it behind the back supports the lumbar spine. By filling the hollow gap in the lumbar spinal area we are allowing our shoulders to come back helping support the balance of our head, equalizing our ear with our shoulder. It’s a win-win situation. Use this at home, use it at work and use it when you drive.
Selecting the best lumbar support for your car seat
Firstly, let’s talk about the seat wedge. These come in a variety of different sizes and heights. The wedge is formed by one thicker end than the other end. The best wedge to use is the one that is not too steep an angle but can just be used to help level out the bucket style seats. What you need to be aware of is the measurement of the width of the wedge itself. Check with the measurement that you’ve got in the car especially if you’ve got quite high and pronounced sides to the car seat so that when you get at home, you know that it could fit snuggly in place. The seat wedge will level the seat and will help avoid that sinking feeling in your seat.
The next step is to get a good lumbar support for your car seat. The best one are the ones in which allow you to adjust the thickness of the lumbar support by removing some layers. The lumbar support should be a few centimeters maybe a hands width from the actual base of the seat itself so it’s right on the curve of your spine and not just pushing your pelvis forward. If you decide to purchase a bigger back support, which covers most of the car seat back, then make sure to check the measurements of the car seat against the measurements of the torso back.
Using the lumbar support correctly for your chair
A lumbar curve is a natural curve that a spine should have. The lumbar support for your chair protrudes outwards and encourages the gentle curve at your back. Now there’s a right and a wrong way to use the lumbar support. The right way would be to take your butt and kind of scooch it back underneath the curve all the way and lean on the curve. This creates a nice fluid curve all the way up and therefore its supportive.
The problem is if you start getting lazy, you scooch forward and lazily just support your upper back. That’s bad behavior and there is no point of having a lumbar support if not used correctly.
