Over in our articles section we’ve got a brand new guide to planning, designing and implementing a reception desk. It’s a detailed guide that will take you through the key stages of organising your reception desk project with us. So if you’re considering getting a new reception installed for the first time, or there were hiccups last time, check out the guide and see an outline of what we’ve come to expect from our side and yours in a reception desk project.
The Apprentice this year has had us, and millions across the nation, gripped for weeks now. But it was the business plan devised by this years winner Tom Pellereau that really caught or eye. An ergonomic chair!
Sir Alan was of course his usual ‘loveable’ self and ripped into the plan mercilessly, but since Tom won you can’t help but wonder if Sir Alan has actually seen something in his plan. Despite saying he’d rather give up and emigrate if he were told that he had to provide assessments for all his employees, we think that the the power of the show and the new awareness it will have just given for ergonomic products as well DSE assessments would be a hard thing for Sir Alan to pass up on. There’s no gimmick or fad to rely on, many people work with postural problems without knowledge of the government legislation that is there to help them and of course that ergonomic chairs really do work.
Image courtesy of Daily Mail
We’ve already discussed the benefits of ergonomic products at work in this post on the costs of absenteeism and also the effects of bad posture in this post so if the Apprentice has brought you here why not give them a read.
Here at Posture People we’re very much proponents of the ergonomic chair, it’s all about a healthy posture and exceptional comfort for us. But there are other schools of thought and among them is the increasingly popular concept of the ‘standing desk’. Some of you may already work in an office where people have taken to this practice, some of you may have never heard of it, yet others may in fact already be standing desk users. This blog piece hopes to enlighten the ignorant, inform the curious and perhaps even tell the experts something new.
Standing Desks Are Good For You
This is the crux of why people even bother with standing desk setups. We humans weren’t designed to sit around all day, and a standing posture is the task our bodies have evolved to assume. Standing keeps the back in its natural curve, to the same extent of one our lovely ergonomic office chairs. And to us posture is paramount, you need to look after your spine and standing is one of the best ways to go about it.
Sitting of course isn’t bad for you, but you do burn less calories whilst sitting than when you are standing. To be more specific you’ll burn about 1 calorie per minute when sitting, but 3 per minute when standing. Now think of that in terms of your average day at work, eight hours, nine, or more? If you were to work sitting down for eight hours you’d be burning around 480 calories, if you stood up for the duration of that time we ‘re now talking around 1440 calories being burned.
The benefits should be obvious; burning an extra 1000 calories during your working day without stepping foot into a gym or anywhere near a scrap of Lycra will have almost immediate effects.
Setting Up Your Standing Desk Correctly
In order to reap the most of your standing desks bounties you have to ensure everything is laid out perfectly. Just like we recommend with sitting workstations: aim to have your eyeline meeting the top of your monitor. Then keep your arms at right angles with the surface of your desk. After this we’re into the unknown territory of standing desk specific advice.
What Do I Need?
Creating a standing desk set up does require a little more thought than just deciding to stand at work one day. First of all you need your desk to be considerably taller. Some desks can be adjusted to reach the height required, and there are even fantastic electric height adjustable desks that make switching between a sitting and a standing desk even easier.
Then there are a few extra options to consider. A lot of standing desks have issues with computer cabling, not just keeping them tidy across the new extra distance they have to travel but also issues because the cables won’t stretch far enough. A common solution is to have the computer slung under the desk in a special mount, which many desking ranges already accommodate as an optional extra.
Footrests, or foot bars. Standing can get tiring very quickly but simply being able to shift your weight from leg to leg with the help of a footrest.
You may even want to consider a relief chair or stool. Of particular note we’ve just taken stock of an ideal stool here at Posture People, the Sway.
New to our Brighton showroom is an absolutely fantastic stool called Sway. It’s a very attractive stool with a swaying motion that is there to aid the body in assuming the best possible posture.
The stool is extremely versatile and is easy to use. With a simple mechanism on the stem to change the height between 665mm-915mm. Sway will fit in many different scenarios, from a stylish bar stool, to a great meeting room chair. Sway almost forces you to maintain a good posture and keeps your back and leg muscles active, making it impossible to slump on.
One particular scenario that Sway is perfect for is the standing desk setup that is becoming increasingly popular. Standing desks are great because you can’t possibly recline or adopt a harmful posture and you’re keeping active, but often they can be tiring. Adding Sway to such a setup means you have support, but still can’t revert into a bad posture like you can in even the best office chairs.
Sway also comes in at a flyweight 3kg and has a small frame making it great to store too.
Sway comes with a black base and stem and a fabric covered round seat that can be coloured in your choice of black, grey, green or mandarin.
According to the latest report by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (CSP), the health of the nation could be dramatically improved if methods of Musculo Skeletal Disorder (MSD; injuries affecting posture) prevention, such as physiotherapy and ergonomic equipment were provided by employers.
This would also go a long way to reduce costs within the health service, within companies and payouts from benefits schemes. This compliments a report by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)which found many of the same conclusions.
Issues highlighted by the report are the estimated £7.4 billion being lost by companies due to employee absences due to ill health, of which a third is related to MSDs. This is a fact that is constantly being investigated and a new figure is estimated periodically. But the report then goes on to mention a less obvious figure; £15 billion in estimated losses due to employees turning up to work with health problems. The report claims that many employees will prefer to go to work with problems affecting their health rather than take days off, because they fear for their jobs or because of other reasons.
Using the Health and Safety Executive’s statistical data the CSP found that 538,000 people in Great Britain suffer from MSDs. The CSP report suggests that providing physiotherapist based care and ergonomically designed equipment for these people will prevent further absences and return employees to health more quickly.
Included within the report were testimonials by companies who had seen returns on the use of preventative measures:
The bottom line of the report is that a significant proportion of the country’s workforce suffer from MSDs and this costs the British economy tens of billions of pounds. Physiotherapy is the first port of call for treatment of MSDs, but complimentary to physiotherapy is ergonomic office equipment, which if prescribed early enough can even prevent MSDs ever appearing.
Posture People are here to help with every aspect of the ergonomic office.
From ergonomic chairs for lower back pain, the most common MSD, ergonomic mice and keyboards for RSI, all the way to simple DSE assessments (required by the government for all UK employers) there are many cost effective ways of improving the health of your employees.
One way to start with preventative measures is to read our guide to healthy workstations.
The Times on Tuesday 10 August published an article about how exercise scientists were doubting the need to have a strong core. Pilates particularly is based around the principles that a strong core is the key to better posture and a life free from backpain.
The Times journalist Peta Bee questioned whether too much emphasis could in fact cause problems rather than solve them. Obviously being interested in all things that can help and prevent backpain, it was interesting to read an article which argues against core stability exercises.
We found this interesting rebuttal of the article by Glenn Withers. http://www.ausphysio.com/info/media.aspx?article=26, where he argues the article doesn’t include all the research in the area, and that actually core stability work does still have a place in today’s exercise routines.
Our view is that the article maybe concentrated too much in one area. We don’t believe that people with backpain should look for just one solution i.e. just doing core stability exercises, in fact most of our clients find that it’s a combination of factors that can reduce backpain. Exercise is just one factor. Lifestyle, working habits and stress levels are all factors, and often all need to be considered when people are reviewing why they are suffering with backpain.
People often start the process with treatment, and it often becomes a cycle – get treated, feel fine for awhile and then because nothing else has changed then the problem reoccurs. So then you have to look at changing your environment, which is often the way you work.
When people buy a new ergonomic chair from us, we often advise that this isn’t an instant cure. The ergonomic chair still needs to be set up correctly, the desk it’s being used at needs to be set up correctly and if you are using a laptop it’s essential to have it on a laptop stand. The next bit of the puzzle is to look at long term strengthening of your back, and that’s where we believe that exercise can help.
So to refer back to the article, actually if you only focus on one area such as core stability then you could be causing problems but if you think of core stability as one of the building blocks, it’s far more likely to be successful.
Posture People were really pleased to sell the first Profit Pure in the UK. The new ergonomic chair from BMA Nomique builds on their already successful design, but has a more stylish white finish to the chair.
We were also a bit star struck as the first person to seduced by the Profit Pure’s looks was Natasha Khan, a local Brighton artist better known as Bat for Lashes.
Natasha had this to say about the chair ‘I ordered the Profit Pure from Posture People for my home studio. I liked the chair because it’s a perfect balance between being great for my posture and also a beautiful design. Posture People have been extremely efficient and lovely to deal with’
Profit Pure Ergonomic Office Chair
We like the chair as it offers a real alternative to traditional black/chrome or polished finishes that other chairs are produced in, and fits in perfectly with today’s modern office schemes.
To celebrate the world cup, how about a St Georges Chair? RH have produced their fabulour Highback Extend & RH400 chair in this patriotic fabric. We couldn’t resist and have one on display in our Brighton Showroom.
To be honest the chair is a definite winner as RH have just extended the warranty period on the majority of their chairs to 10 years. So this chair will still be under warranty if England are successful in their bid to hold the World Cup in 2018.
To find out more about the range, or get a quote for a St Georges chair give us a call on 0845 313 1503.
At Posture People we are lucky enough to have supplied products to some amazing people over the years, and we were really pleased to see that one of our customers, Andy Sturgeon won Best Show Garden this year at the Chelsea Flower Show. This fantastic award is given to the Show Garden judged to be the most outstanding, and is a real accolade for any garden designer.
Andy Sturgeon's Award Winning Garden
To see why Andy won, click the links below to check out his award winning garden.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/chelsea/show-gardens/daily-telegraph-garden.shtml
http://www.crocus.co.uk/chelsea-andy-2010
A couple of years ago we supplied Andy and his team with fantastic bright green Axia office chairs a couple of years ago now, and Andy was kind enough to allow us to write a case study on why he chose ergonomic office chairs, and the impact they had on his team.
Our intrepid duo have done it – David Blood, MD of Posture People and Tim Clewes from BMA have walked all the way around the Isle of Wight, carrying all their kit and a few collected quite a few blisters along the way.
But along the way due to a tremendous effort they have raised over £1500 for the British Heart Foundation and Parkinsons Disease.
Congratulations to both of them!
