Balls Are for Playing with, Not Sitting On

[catcul]

I'm talking about the large balls that many people use instead of office chairs. I sat on one while I was replacing a customer's computer. Many people would say that it's supposed to help with back problems. I believe that sitting on one is the reason I'm at work wearing a back brace.

I don't see how a kid's toy is beneficial to back health. Give me an office chair any day.

[GOInsanity]

I think the idea is that most back aches are caused by the muscles not providing adequate support. The ball causes you to have to fidget all the time to balance and works your back muscles, causing them to strengthen. This then reduces back ache.

I think you would also need to work up to using it for a whole day. An hour or so for a few days, increase until it's a full day.

It would also require that your back problems be caused by muscle aches/fatigue and not something like a bad disk or something.

I think that's also the idea behind the standing desk stations.

[s_stabeler]

I'll admit that my personal opinion is that health benefits from standing desks aren't actually the primary motivation for employers proposing to use them. (I'm not saying there aren't any- though I personally doubt it is good for you to be standing up all day- just that there are other motivations) Specifically, I suspect part of the idea is to allow more desks to be crammed in. Similar to how I can't help but suspect the primary reason for open offices is to make it easier to see what employees are doing.

[Aragarthiel]

I know that those large balls (I think they're most often called yoga balls) are excellent for use by laboring mothers, since sitting on them opens up the pelvis and that can help reduce pain. Personally, they help me with back pain because my hips are slightly misaligned and it realigns them temporarily, so I can see how they might help similar issues.

[GOInsanity]

I'll admit that my personal opinion is that health benefits from standing desks aren't actually the primary motivation for employers proposing to use them. (I'm not saying there aren't any- though I personally doubt it is good for you to be standing up all day- just that there are other motivations) Specifically, I suspect part of the idea is to allow more desks to be crammed in. Similar to how I can't help but suspect the primary reason for open offices is to make it easier to see what employees are doing.

Here we've had to fight and bring in doctor's notes to get a standing desk. They just install it in your cubicle and don't save any room. They also usually get mats that have a raise ridge in the back and a round hump in the middle allowing you to change your stance throughout the day. Supposedly it does wonders for some people.

And yeah, the open offices is really stupid. There seems to be push for those in the engineering world where it has been proven to actually hinder work since we have no space to store the code books we need (supposed to be going paperless since it's the new and hip thing to do - folks are still trying to use the codes that were replaced over a decade ago and have been updated multiple times since, do you think we're going to suddenly going to get with the times?) and we look at each other all the time. Great in a creative field, not so great in a technical one. Really crappy when you have ADHD like my husband.

[mjr]

I think the general idea, IIRC, is that the "fitness ball" as a chair is supposed to help you with core strength or some such, and thus help alleviate some back issues.

Last time I sat on one and tried that, I just ended up lightly bouncing up and down on it. It wasn't really distracting, it's just that sometimes I'm a fidgeter.

And to GoInsanity...the "open" floot plans in offices is, in theory, supposed to foster collaboration and such. I find them a distraction myself. Also I agree with you that there's not really a lot of room for me to store any programming books I might want to bring.

And the idea of a "paperless office" is a joke. I work in an "Agile" development environment. Wanna talk about burning through paper? Wow.

[protege]

And to GoInsanity...the "open" floot plans in offices is, in theory, supposed to foster collaboration and such. I find them a distraction myself. Also I agree with you that there's not really a lot of room for me to store any programming books I might want to bring.

You're not the only one. I work for a brokerage. Instead of having cubicles, which would cut down on the noise a bit, we're all in one big room. Noisy as hell, which sucks when a big chunk of your day is answering the damn phone. Very little room to keep the reports and other things I need nearby. Sure, I can dump them in the file cabinet, but with multiple screens on my desk, the phone, printer and computer under the desk, it's a bit cramped.

And the idea of a "paperless office" is a joke. I work in an "Agile" development environment. Wanna talk about burning through paper? Wow.

The "paperless office" utopia has been around since the 1970s. Even though all of our information is on a server, there's still plenty of paper consumed every week. Granted, most of it gets recycled, but why do we really need to keep daily sales sheets? Sure, they're nice to write down changes or to take notes on, but what's the point of keeping them if we're keeping digital ones anyway? We don't even look at them the next day. Mine get throw into a file cabinet...where they sit for years.

[mjr]

The "paperless office" utopia has been around since the 1970s. Even though all of our information is on a server, there's still plenty of paper consumed every week. Granted, most of it gets recycled, but why do we really need to keep daily sales sheets? Sure, they're nice to write down changes or to take notes on, but what's the point of keeping them if we're keeping digital ones anyway? We don't even look at them the next day. Mine get throw into a file cabinet...where they sit for years.

With SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) we have at least one page of a flip chart we use. We also have a lot of sticky notes we go through every 10 weeks. It's insane to see how much paper we go through at our Program Increment meetings.

[Pixelated]

With a title like that, I just had to come here and see what the discussion was actually about ...

*removes mind from gutter*

I've heard the same thing about those balls fostering "core strength" but I agree that, like any form of exercise, it's something you have to start in small increments. If catcul's first time on one meant sitting on it for a full workday, I can see why it would lead to problems. I'd like to try that -- or a standing desk -- but in the office where I work, there's no possibility of either (no room, for one thing).

For what it's worth, my brother says sitting on chairs is highly unnatural for the human frame as it exists today. Sitting on the floor -- common in some cultures -- is actually what we're built for. (Brother, by the way, graduated from an Occupational Therapy program in which the graduation rate was nearly 100% -- because anybody who couldn't cut it got weeded out REALLY early. And just getting into the program at all was a tough road. His graduating class had a grand total of 25 students in it. I mention all this simply to back up his credentials to be making a statement like that. )

And the whole paperless office is a bad joke. I work in a small law office that deals in family law (among other things) and the number of trees that die to keep that area of law going is staggering.

[catcul]

Actually, I only sat on it for an hour. My back hurt for three days. My back wasn't hurting before I sat on it, but it did after.

[Blue Ginger]

Those balls are evil bastards to me. I have balance issues already and have tried to sit on them twice. First time, I fell straight backwards. Second time, I just couldn't sit right and kept feeling like I was going to tip off.

My issue is with 'ergonomic' chairs. I ended up with a really bad sway in my back and a badly tilted pelvis because of fancy smancy $500 ergonomic chair at my workplace in 2008-09. It took 3 years of constantly checking my posture and too many chiro visits to get close to straight again. Basically if it has lots of padding or 'support' in the lower back area, I can't use it.

This is like the bad evil hurting chair, but the lower back area was even further pushed in (if that makes sense) and not adjustable.
https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/...lack-fnmb100bk

This is closer to what I can use, but I have the back adjusted so the bottom is flush to the seat part. Then the lower back part is actually level with my bum. Then yay no back or hip pain for me.
https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/...ack-pamatxhbbk

Yes, I am a walking, talking contradiction to all things normal.

[Kuari]

I used to sit on a yoga ball at one of the call centers I worked at and it definitely helped me a great deal. But people started swiping the ball when I wasn't around and were being stupid with it, so the OH&S committee decreed that any of us sitting on yoga balls at work had to take them home so that nobody could potentially hurt themselves if they fell off. We tried to reason with the committee because we knew more than enough not to screw around on them, that if the idiots left our yoga balls alone instead of playing on them that there wouldn't be any issues. But rather than make sure that other employees kept their hands off of things that didn't belong to them, we were still ordered to take our balls home. I was not a happy camper, and the fucknugget that always took my ball got the brunt of my anger because he was the one that fell off and whacked his head off the floor - the incident that got the OH&S committee involved in the first damn place.

These days I use a Steelcase chair like this at both home and work. The one at home was left behind by a previous tenant and the landlord said I could have it, and the one at work was from a previous employee so I absconded with it. Awesome, fully adjustable chairs.

[Blue Ginger]

That was the bad evil hurting chair, Kuari, but with a mesh back to it.

The flashbacks! They hurt so much. Glad it works for you, but I'd rather sit on the floor.

[Food Lady]

I have both a standing desk and one of these: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...73dea09b6f.jpg because of scoliosis. I can't imagine sitting on a ball. I'd fall off and end up with a concussion.

[telecom_goddess]

I just want to add, that I have had to deal with the "open office" bullshit for a few years now and I HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Introverted people like me, with sensory issues, can't work very well in this environment. It's too loud, too many people, too light, and no privacy at ALL. And they hold these dumb meetings where everyone is clapping and cheering, when I"m on the damn phone. Whoever thought of this needs to be dead, after being burned and drawn and quartered. I want my high walled dark corner cube back dammit.