by admin on June 25, 2010
The Herman Miller Mirra Chair provides a casual alternative to HM's more classic Aeron Chair.
This is just a short review of the Herman Miller Mirra chair. Let’s start by going over the many positive aspects of the chair. The Mirra chair offers a unique fit that’s completely adjustable to accommodate almost anyone. This means that you can accommodate a lot of body types and sizes on the chair. If you buy the fully loaded model, almost everything is adjustable. If you buy the basic chair, it actually has a non-adjustable lumbar and I know that this can actually be a bit uncomfortable for some people. So, just keep that in mind. One of the amazing features of the Mirra Chair is the mesh backing that offers total back support. It basically molds to your spine instantly so whenever you’re moving in your chair it moves with your various movements and accommodates all the sizes and postures as well.
Another feature, which is very important to me, is that it has a tote feature that has different pivot points so it pivots at the hip, for example, or at the knee or the ankle. This means you can adjust to any position that you want it to be. I’m a pathologist so I’m looking down a microscope quite a lot of the time, so for me, that’s quite a nice feature. Another feature again is the seat. It’s very similar to the Aeron chair in that it allows your body to breathe, whereas other office chairs can trap your body heat and make you feel hot.
Customizations and Design
Like all other Herman Miller chairs, there’s a huge number of customizations available. You can get the Mirra chair in virtually any color combination that you want. Just in terms of its look, I think it has a fantastic, innovative design. It just looks clean and kind of futuristic.
A Few Cons
It’s obvious that I really like this chair overall, but there are just a couple of bad things. I mentioned already that the basic chair is nonadjustable for the lumbar. So, if you do have issues with your lumbar then you might want to consider moving up to the fully loaded version. Another thing I’ve heard, but not from my experience, is that very small people can have problems with the arm chairs since they can’t adjust them far enough in and basically they have to extend their arms out to rest on the arm chair. So if you are shorter than 5’2″ and fairly light, that is a consideration you’d need to make. Also, smaller-framed people have reported that the chair itself is too deep and so they kind of get lost in the depth of the seat. Just another small thing to note: the Mirra chair has two screws which hold the chair back to the base and as you sit in it over a few months of use they kind of work themselves loose. So don’t throw away your little hex wrench, because you’ll need them to turn the screws.
Overall, I think the Mirra chair is fantastic. It ranges from around $500 for the basic up to $1000 for the fully customizable, which is cheaper in comparison to the Aeron.
by admin on June 25, 2010
The Via Swopper Chair provides a practical alternative to more traditional ergonomic chairs.
Today I’m going to review the VIA Swopper Chair. Though at first glance it may not seem like a traditional office chair, the Swopper is certainly intended to be something that you would use at your work-station for 8 to 10 hours a day. The Swopper chair is an excellent therapeutic intervention for those of you who suffer from lower back pain. It does this by addressing the root cause of lot of the problems that we’re seeing in the work environment today as a result of static posture; it encourages core-strength stabilization, improving strength and conditioning of the lower intrinsic muscles of the back on a lower level of conditioning adds. At the same time, extremely multidimensional as it aslo allows for a lot of movement while still stabalizing the core muscles. It moves both vertically and laterally in a similar fashion to the Physio Ball. So think of this in terms of all the health benefits you would get with the Physio Ball combined with all the adjust-ability and stability of a task chair.
The height of the Swopper Chair adjusts without the need for a pump. The spring tension is adjustable, so you can increase or decrease the tension on the spring. And what this is doing is; think of the spine. What’s happening here is this gentle low impact subtle motion, which is the healthiest kind of motion for the body, is loading, offloading, loading, offloading on the disk tissue between the vertebrae and your spine. This motion is critical for providing nutrition to the disk. So, it’s like hydraulic action—pulling nutrients into the disk tissue and getting rid of waste products. So, that’s occurring just very subtly as you bounce on the Swopper. That tension is adjustable so you can increase or decrease the resistance on the spring by turning this collar here. So you can adjust this to suit somebody from 120 lbs up to 290 lbs depending on their stature. In addition, you can increase or decrease the lateral motion you are experiencing here. Again, this is 360 degrees movement with lateral capability which is brilliant in terms of when you lean forward, the unit moves with you. Your pelvis has the opportunity to roll forward. So you’re decreasing the strain on your lower-back and maintaining that curve of lower-back very easily. So you can increase or decrease this movement by adjusting this under here. It only weighs 23 lbs. It’s very easy to handle and move around. There’s a plus and minus sign here. Turn this, to increase the range of motion towards the plus sign or towards the minus sign to decrease the range of motion. You’ll never have it completely still because the whole idea is to have that low-impact, subtle control of motion occurring but brilliant in terms of overall health and wellness and improving posture. So if you’re having body ailments (especially lower-back pain) from sitting in more traditional ergonomic chairs, I highly suggest you check out the VIA Swopper Chair.
by admin on June 22, 2010
Steelcase's Amia Chair brings a sleek modern look to any office setting.
The Steelcase Amia chair is the little brother to the Leap chair and uses some of the same lie back and special arm technology that you get from the more expensive models. It also is warranted for 24/7 use for someone up to 300 lbs and with all the points of adjustments, it’s a really great choice from anyone from a very petite woman to a larger man. The Steelcase Amia Chair has just a couple points of manual adjustments so that you can set them and leave the chair to do the rest of the work. First of all, you got your seat height as well as your seat depth. Each of these has a very wide range of adjustments to fit the broadest range of the population as possible. The rest of the work is going to be done by the chair’s dynamic back which actually follows with your body as you move. You have the ability to set the tension on this so that it can fit better with your weight and your preferences for recline. One thing that’s really nice on this chair is the one-piece lumbar adjustment. It actually travels about 6 inches and that allows you to set that right into at your lumbar at your lower back. Our favorite part about the Steelcase Amia chair is the fore way arms. This is the same arm that’s used on the more expensive Leap and Think chairs and they adjust up and down, in and out, backwards and forwards, and 30 degrees in each direction.
The biggest difference between the Leap and the Amia chairs is the way that the lie back technology is implemented. Both of the chairs are going to have a dynamic recline with you but you’ll find that on the Leap, it will actually track along with both your shoulders and your lumbar as you move back and forth. The Amia chair doesn’t have as much of a flex in the back, so as you lean backwards you don’t have any motion here in the shoulders and you don’t have anything that is going to bow along with your lumbar support. Overall, at about two-thirds of the cost of the Leap chair, the Steelcase Amia has one of the widest feature sets available at its price range. With the dynamic back and our favorite arms on the market, the chair is highly recommended.
