I tried out the exercise ball chair and decided it's ultimately not for me. Apparently, the exercise ball as office chair is a growing trend, apparently popular with google employees. It was also featured in LifeHacker as the first of 3 ways to sit at your office to better improve your posture.
Getting a ball
I starting getting the idea to try this out after seeing an exercise ball being sold at bn for 30 bucks. I shopped around and ended up getting one at wal-mart for 10 bucks, not bad.
Sitting on the ball
I brought the ball into my work place, and was mostly able to stay under the radar. A few people saw it and commented that they thought it was a good idea, mm, I would have thought more people would get weirded out. The first and the second day I tried getting used to it, and it does take a LOT of getting used to. It strain my back muscles, and I tried different way to sit to be the most comfortable (requiring the least effort and adjustment). I first tried leaning forward into my feet(so the ball is leaning against my feet, which are on the floor, stablizing the ball). This wasn't that comfortable in the long run because 1)my feet would feel pressure after a while, and 2)my back would still be strained because I think it's also leaning slightly forward and so not completely straight. On the third day, I tried moving my legs back, so that they are spread out and on the sides of the ball. This way my body was balanced on top of the ball and my back was straight and on the center top of the ball. This work well for my back, I think, but no good for my legs, which would feel pressure after a while. Also, I found it hard to concentrate on work because I was constently thinking about my sitting posture. Also, my palms were sweating a lot, I guess from all this concentrating on my sitting. At this point I googled to see in what way the ball is supposed to be sat on, and what I found was that you are supposed to constently be moving around. This doesn't sound good, because the more I have the move around, the less able I am to concentrate on my work. And the way I work, sometimes I like to stop everything and concentrate on a problem. I tried for another couple of hours, but after that I tried my old chair and decided I liked it better, so I threw in the towel. Well at least I did give it a try.
My Solution
So after today, I am simply going to sit straight in my crappy office chair when working and lean back when relaxing.
Links
Exercise Ball Chair
anonymous
said over 4 years ago
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How big was the ball?
Toby
said over 4 years ago
I think it was 60 inches in diameter.
Toby
said over 4 years ago
We still have the ball, we use it as the chair to the pseudo-office-chair next to the kitchen.