I'm still struggling with this idea about active sitting.
Many of the big issues about movement have long been known. For example, in Kilbom's review in 1986 (cite below) she described in great length the many health disorders associated with the reduction in movement, such as associated with shifting from being a secretary in the 1970's to becoming a data entry operator. She very clearly explained the various impairments to heart disease, peripheral venous disorders, arthritis, and so on - and the reasons for our inability to feed the cells (especially in the spine) and eliminate waste products. So the information about the basis for active sitting has been there for quite a while. And certainly the newer research on ligaments over the last decade have a lot of implications.
But the question I have is how we can justify taking away the backrest and armrest in a primary chair. Active sitting makes sense to me as a second chair or for special situations such as populations with good core muscle control or specific disabilities or for certain tasks. But where is the evidence that active sitting even works? The majority of studies on sitting balls, for example, suggest there is little or no benefit. And Dr. Goossen's study in press in Ergonomics suggesting that movements actually reduce in the type of dynamic seating he looked at.
Dynamic seating and active seating are just garbage terms now that completely obscure the issues by lumping everything together, when the different types are quite different.
Kilbom, A. (1987). Short- and long-term effects of extreme physical inactivity: a brief review. In: Knave, B. and Wideback, P.G. (Eds.) Work with display units, Elsevier Science Publishers B V (North-Holland), Amsterdam, p. 219-228.
Conference Paper Workshop presentation slides at ErgoExpo 2013: Adjustable, d...
Read these articles, they might help ...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=increasing+passive+energy+expenditure+during+clerical+work
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16696264
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793460/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16410033
Thanks for following up, Tim. I welcome a discussion. The research is getting a bit overwhelming. I don't have access to the Beer study in work. I have 28 citations of research studies that reviewed ball seating in one way or another in one of my Endnote databases, My primary knowledge is based on the older studies. About 6 or 7 years back I did a review and found pretty consistent findings about the ball chair were negative, which did not surprise me. After all, this is a non-adjustable fixed-height chair that provides few opportunities to change posture during work. Further, it seems to me that some forms of work, particularly those that require precision, will require more static positioning than other chairs.
It was interesting to me to see Grooten et al's article in press about a different kind of active seat than the ball chair.
See this link http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23837402
But now there seems to be a resurgence in interest in the ball chair, and I need to go back and review the studies. I'll get back. Let me know if you'd like a text file summary of these.
But it seems to me that part of the problem relates to the use of the dummy categories of "dynamic seating" and "active seating", which obscure important differences between studies.
Happy holidays Rani Lueder
Maybe these two are also interesting:
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-01-small-elliptical-device.html
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-01-soccer-fans-ffiter-weight.html
The best of sitting is getting up and doing some steps. This is the active part of sitting.
Trying to find my way in the scientific world of sitting and that has led to this question. To me what is missing in all this research towards dynamic sitting/ball sitting is the knowledge/status/body awareness of the individual that is sitting. We seek solutions in giving people dynamic chairs, but most have no clue how to use them or the knowledge/body control on how to use them varies or an instruction without any scientific basis is given. Isn't this a huge issue in doing research towards dynamic sitting?
I write this from the perspective of an co-owner of a company that gives sit workshops. In which we don't start from the perspective of the chair, but the human body (unique in the world). In short we teach people how to use their pelvis in sitting and guide them in finding what chair fits their individual bodies. We have amazing results and keep data from our workshops. (For example what sitting angle people in our workshops prefer) I am not writing this to promote my company, I am just very surprised by the status of science on sitting and how it's used by manufacturing companies.
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