Need new office chair - Roller Ball?

[Gardengirl28]

I am recently diagnosed and find that after sitting for a while, my legs are stiff and don't work very well. I need to do a few stretches and rotations to wake them up.

I am wondering about purchasing one of those roller ball chairs -- they indicate they keep your core working and act as an activation for back and leg muscles cuz you're not really relaxing in the chair.. wondering if this would help..

Does anyone have experience using these as office chairs? I sit at the computer all day at my job, and can be embarrassing to get up and try to walk right away..

Thanks
Terry

[Veronica]

Terry, I have been working at my computer all this morning doing monthly paperwork and thought of your post. Now, I don't have experience with the roller ball chair, but I have used just a regular roller ball as my chair at times when I work from home. My experience is that it does work the core and hamstrings in helping to maintain balance, BUT it would not give you the stretch that it seems you really need. When I have times like today, sitting for longer periods, I need to stand and just stretch the hamstrings/calves and my back often. And BEFORE I start walking. With all the hype about how sitting is bad for everyone, not just PWMS, I would think that getting up and just stretching at regular intervals would be easy to do without too much notice from others. And if others aren't stretching, you may be a trend setter!

Now, " Just north of NYC" means where? I am in Tarrytown.....

[Gardengirl28]

Thanks Veronica.. well I went ahead and bought this inflated plastic pillow that you put on your office chair - -hey for $15 its worth a shot. Folks use this to stand on to work on balance, and to sit on for the same thing - and to work the core.. so we will see.

Yes I do get up and stretch, do calf raises and lunges and a few other things before I walk, otherwise the walking is the "stiff-legged side to side 100 yr old Italian lady in black" style.. which I really don't want to be there yet... LOL

Just north of NYC means Mt. Vernon . .so Tarrytown is very close!

thanks for your advise! I will have to put on my calendar to get up more often to stretch..

Terry

[ActiveMSers]

Hey Terry, I read this a bit ago and wanted to chime in. Not to be a bubble burster, but researchers posed the same question: is sitting on an exercise ball better?

Unfortunately, the answer seems to be no.

“To be quite frank, I cannot see any advantage or reason for a person to be using an exercise ball as an office chair,” says Jack P. Callaghan, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Spine Biomechanics and Injury Prevention at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.

Although you might expect that sitting on the ball would demand extra exertion to keep you upright and stable, when Dr. Callaghan and his colleagues had healthy young volunteers sit alternately on a ball, an office chair and a backless stool while machines measured muscle activity in their abdomens and lower backs, they found no meaningful differences in the seating options; sitting on a ball did not provide a mini-workout for the midsection.

Ball chairs do not improve posture, either. Research by Dr. Callaghan and others have shown that people generally slump just as much on a ball as in a normal chair and that back pain is not reduced. And, in part because sitting on a ball chair involves more contact area between the seating surface and your backside than a chair does — you sink into the ball somewhat — many new adopters of ball chairs report increased discomfort in their backsides.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/0...l-ball-chairs/