Why Your Office Chair Is Causing You Back Pain

Although the office chair industry is a booming one, few people stop to learn what they need to know about fitting their seating equipment to their height, frame, or any condition they may have such asbackor hip pain. Instead, most ergonomic chair customers base their purchase decisions on color, style, and price.

Here are some tips to adjust your office chair so that it decreases your back and hip pain.

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Use Your Chair’s Height Adjustment

Rare is the office worker who is interested in tinkering with the controls located at the bottom of the chair seat, but the levers, paddles, and knobs are there for a reason. If nothing else, learning how to adjust the height of your chair may provide a reference for any other workstation adjustment you may need to make.

The height adjustment is the primary way you have to change the angle of your hip joint during sitting. This angle, in turn, affects the position of your pelvis and degree of curve in your lower back, possibly altering the normal alignment of your spine. And the height of your chair also affects certain muscles (quadriceps, psoas, and hamstrings) that play an important role in posture-related back pain.

It’s Much More Than the Chair Back Angle

A recent study measured the load that sitting has on simulated spinal discs. Researchers concluded that pressure on the spine can be relieved with a more open angle between the trunk and the thigh, that is, the hip joint angle.

Of course, the backrest, seat tilt, and lumbar support features of your chair can help support a pain-free back, and they should be used. But to set yourself up with ideal alignmentfrom the beginning, nothing beats getting the correct seat height for your frame.

Alumbar support pillowcan help relieve pressure and tension in your lower back.

Choosing the Right Depth for the Seat

When you sit in your chair, your own back should be against the back of the chair. A typical kitchen chair, for example, may have no back supports or armrests to assist with posture and angle.

You also want to check and see how concave the chair surface is. If it has a prominent curve, this will cause your back to be rounded when sitting. It becomes uncomfortable and can lead to back pain. A chair with a built-in support, or even a pillow, can help you to make the depth adjustment.

You should be sitting all the way back to ensure the best support for a healthy posture. This means that size matters, and different people will need seats of varying depths for the best match.

Getting Your Seat to the Right Height

Another way to understand your hip joint angle is to compare the height of your knees to the height of your hips. This is usually the easiest way to assess if the chair height is right while you are in the process of adjusting it.

When your chair seat is the right height, your feet will be flat on the floor. Your feet should reach the floor without causing pressure at the back of your thighs. If you’ve got a case of dangling feet (which may be due to your own height), place a footrest or thick book under them.

Your knees should be approximately level with, or lower than, your hips. Level, in this case, corresponds to a 90-degree angle between the hip and trunk, which is relatively stress-free on the hips and back.

Risks When Your Chair Is Too High

Risks When Your Chair Is Too Low

If your knees are higher than your hips, your chair is probably too low. In this case, your hip joints will have an extreme degree of flexion. Most people’s backs can’t handle this well because their hip muscles aren’t flexible enough. If you sit with your knees higher than your hips, your position may be responsible for your low back pain.

5 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.De Carvalho D, Grondin D, Callaghan J.The impact of office chair features on lumbar lordosis, intervertebral joint and sacral tilt angles: a radiographic assessment.Ergonomics. 2017;60(10):1393-1404. doi:10.1080/00140139.2016.1265670Rohlmann A, Zander T, Graichen F, Dreischarf M, Bergmann G.Measured loads on a vertebral body replacement during sitting.Spine J. 2011;11(9):870-5. doi:10.1016/j.spinee.2011.06.017Holzgreve F, Maurer-Grubinger C, Fraeulin L, Bausch J, Groneberg DA, Ohlendorf D.Home office versus ergonomic workstation - is the ergonomic risk increased when working at the dining table? An inertial motion capture based pilot study.BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2022 Aug 3;23(1):745. doi: 10.1186/s12891-022-05704-z.United States Department of Labor.Computer workstations eTool.Kiat P, Jee, Siong K, Lim, Yee S.Development of ergonomics guidelines for improved sitting postures in the classroom among Malaysian university students.American Journal of Applied Sciences. 2016;13(8):907-912. doi:10.3844/ajassp.2016.907.912

5 Sources

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.De Carvalho D, Grondin D, Callaghan J.The impact of office chair features on lumbar lordosis, intervertebral joint and sacral tilt angles: a radiographic assessment.Ergonomics. 2017;60(10):1393-1404. doi:10.1080/00140139.2016.1265670Rohlmann A, Zander T, Graichen F, Dreischarf M, Bergmann G.Measured loads on a vertebral body replacement during sitting.Spine J. 2011;11(9):870-5. doi:10.1016/j.spinee.2011.06.017Holzgreve F, Maurer-Grubinger C, Fraeulin L, Bausch J, Groneberg DA, Ohlendorf D.Home office versus ergonomic workstation - is the ergonomic risk increased when working at the dining table? An inertial motion capture based pilot study.BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2022 Aug 3;23(1):745. doi: 10.1186/s12891-022-05704-z.United States Department of Labor.Computer workstations eTool.Kiat P, Jee, Siong K, Lim, Yee S.Development of ergonomics guidelines for improved sitting postures in the classroom among Malaysian university students.American Journal of Applied Sciences. 2016;13(8):907-912. doi:10.3844/ajassp.2016.907.912

De Carvalho D, Grondin D, Callaghan J.The impact of office chair features on lumbar lordosis, intervertebral joint and sacral tilt angles: a radiographic assessment.Ergonomics. 2017;60(10):1393-1404. doi:10.1080/00140139.2016.1265670Rohlmann A, Zander T, Graichen F, Dreischarf M, Bergmann G.Measured loads on a vertebral body replacement during sitting.Spine J. 2011;11(9):870-5. doi:10.1016/j.spinee.2011.06.017Holzgreve F, Maurer-Grubinger C, Fraeulin L, Bausch J, Groneberg DA, Ohlendorf D.Home office versus ergonomic workstation - is the ergonomic risk increased when working at the dining table? An inertial motion capture based pilot study.BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2022 Aug 3;23(1):745. doi: 10.1186/s12891-022-05704-z.United States Department of Labor.Computer workstations eTool.Kiat P, Jee, Siong K, Lim, Yee S.Development of ergonomics guidelines for improved sitting postures in the classroom among Malaysian university students.American Journal of Applied Sciences. 2016;13(8):907-912. doi:10.3844/ajassp.2016.907.912

Rohlmann A, Zander T, Graichen F, Dreischarf M, Bergmann G.Measured loads on a vertebral body replacement during sitting.Spine J. 2011;11(9):870-5. doi:10.1016/j.spinee.2011.06.017

Holzgreve F, Maurer-Grubinger C, Fraeulin L, Bausch J, Groneberg DA, Ohlendorf D.Home office versus ergonomic workstation - is the ergonomic risk increased when working at the dining table? An inertial motion capture based pilot study.BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2022 Aug 3;23(1):745. doi: 10.1186/s12891-022-05704-z.

United States Department of Labor.Computer workstations eTool.

Kiat P, Jee, Siong K, Lim, Yee S.Development of ergonomics guidelines for improved sitting postures in the classroom among Malaysian university students.American Journal of Applied Sciences. 2016;13(8):907-912. doi:10.3844/ajassp.2016.907.912

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Use Your Chair’s Height Adjustment#

It’s Much More Than the Chair Back Angle#

Choosing the Right Depth for the Seat#

Getting Your Seat to the Right Height#

Risks When Your Chair Is Too High#

Risks When Your Chair Is Too Low#