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For something less strenuous on your body, osteopath Simon Freedman designed the Freedman Chair. The chair aims to help your spine and pelvis maintain a neutral position while seated – as though you were standing.
PHOTOGRAPHY Vernon Wong ART DIRECTION & STYLING Ann Neo
Regular chairs rotate your pelvis backwards as you lean into them, causing you to slump and hunch. The Freedman Chair, on the other hand, has seat pads that tilt forward at a 27-degree angle from hip to knee. This makes your pelvis rotate forward, forcing you to sit upright and with proper posture.
The seat pads are contoured to fit your sitting bones; they also tilt from side to side to accommodate uneven leg lengths (many of us have one leg that’s shorter than the other), which can result in a curve on one side of your body when you sit.
COMFORT LEVEL
1 The Seat Pads
They look hard but the seat pads are more comfortable than they appear. They hugged my sitting bones snugly, and provided great support, even though they’re not wide or cushy.
2 The Backrest
Protruding from the backrest are six “back balls” that act almost like massage balls – when I rested against them, they pressed into the muscles along my spine, and helped to ease the tightness there.
3 The Chair’s Height
I simply had to swivel the chair to my desired height and I was all set. The chair is at the right height when your feet rest flat on the ground.
WHAT WE WISH IT HAD
A Full Backrest and Armrests
While the chair supported my mid-back effectively, it would have been nice to have more support for my entire back as well, and somewhere to rest my arms too.
A Nicer-looking Design
Call it an avant-garde piece, but it’s not the most conventionally handsome chair to have at home. Its spine looks skeletal and its legs are clunky, while the textured rubber reminded us of dinosaur hide.
Freedman Chair, $1,699, from www.ergoworks.com.sg.
This story was originally published in Simply Her September 2015.