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Informal study: Do ball chairs really provide ergonomic benefits?

By Rain Noe - March 10, 2011

in Object Culture

For about two years I used an exercise ball (just the ball) as my main office chair. I eventually gave it up after discovering a couple of things:

1. I have a tendency to defeat any ergonomic device over time. While I'd start my work sessions vigilantly paying attention to posture, as I became more engrossed in the task at hand, my body would subconsciously find a way to stay balanced on the chair while increasing the amount of slouch.

2. An exercise ball on the floor quickly gets filthy. And as the ball rotates around, eventually you wind up sitting on a dirty spot.

Ball chairs like the one seen in the photo above take care of problem #2, but how are they at problem #1? I always assumed it was a matter of personal proclivities, that the alert user would find the ball worked well for them, while the slovenly like me would fail to reap any ergonomic benefits over time.

In Ergonomics Today, chiropractor Ian Chong attempts to get to the bottom of the matter with his "What's the Hubbub About Ball Chairs? Are They Really Ergonomic?" article. "We put together a small informal task force made up of some users, Certified and Associate Ergonomists, physical therapists, engineers, occupational therapists, and exercise physiologists—all professionals and all, not surprisingly, with opinions," writes Chong.

Users were quizzed on the ball chair across six categories, with the results posted here and some further analysis and conclusions drawn here. (Those links are to Parts Two and Three of the article, the relevant parts, as Part One is all filler and set-up.)

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Alex Irving

13 years ago

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Professional work station assessments can point out any problems and keep you on the right track if you have a tendency to revert to a bad position.
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Daniela

13 years ago

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Maybe we're just spending too much time sitting. How about a chair that gives you an electric shock every hour or so to remind you to stretch out and sit up.
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Mark

13 years ago

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Well, what a negative article. Is this guy employed by the chair manufacturers? If the ball bursting is a real worry then they can be engineered to be effectively unburstable. As for the comparison with the defective chair; the fall occurred because the chair didn't behave as expected, a ball has a very simple performance model and apart from deflating (which should be fairly obvious) doesn't have the multiple failure modes that an office chair has and could therefore be considered much safer.
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Dave Prince

13 years ago

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Try standing all day in the office instead of sitting! Check out juststand.org for more information.
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