ERGONOMIC CHAIRS

Good lumbar support is recognised by where it supports, not by how much it sticks out. It has to sit in the curve of your lower back, roughly at belt height, and stay there when you recline. If it is a fixed bulge that does not match your back, it is decoration.

There are two ways to get it right, and both are in the range. Adjustable, as on NEIRA, NOMA OFFICE and NOMA, where you choose between four positions until you find yours. And adaptive, as on MYLA, which adjusts itself to your weight and posture, with no controls or knobs, and also moves up and down with the backrest when you change its height.

That is the real difference between a chair with lumbar support and a chair that claims to have it: whether the support moves to your back or whether you are the one who has to sit awkwardly to find it.

Mesh is not a matter of office aesthetics: air passes through it, and your back does not end up stuck to the chair after a July afternoon. That is why all our ergonomic chairs have it on the backrest. Where they differ is the seat.

Mesh. It is the coolest option, because it also ventilates from below. MYLA uses Flextex, a mesh with more elastic travel and better recovery.

Foam. It is softer and spreads pressure better when you spend many hours sitting. What decides whether it lasts is density: below 30 kg/m³ it sinks within months. NEIRA has double-layer cold-moulded foam at 55 kg/m³.

In a sentence: if your problem is heat, mesh. If it is seat comfort after hours, foam. And if you are torn between mesh and fabric, we compare them in mesh chair or fabric chair.

A chair with twenty adjustments you never touch is no more ergonomic than one with five that are well designed. These are the ones you will use.

Seat height. The adjustment most people skip. It is not decided by how tall you are but by the distance between the sole of your foot and the back of your knee. If the seat is higher, you end up with your feet dangling or the edge pressing into your thigh. We go into it in choosing the right chair for your height and weight.

Seat depth. The sliding seat is there so that two fingers fit between the front edge and the back of your knee. If the seat is too deep, you sit forward and lose the backrest. If it is short, your thigh is left without support. Every model has it.

Backrest height. MYLA adjusts it in twelve positions and NEIRA in ten. It is not a luxury: it is what lets you line the lumbar support up with your back instead of settling for whatever comes from the factory.

Armrests. Three adjustments are enough to work with your elbow at ninety degrees. With four you fine-tune further, and on MYLA they can also be fitted crossed over to move the support back and get closer to the desk.

Synchro mechanism. It is what sets an ergonomic chair apart from a normal desk chair. When you recline, the backrest and the seat move together in different proportions, so your back keeps contact and no gap opens up in the lumbar area. Every model has it.

The best posture is the next one. Eight hours fixed in the perfect position is more tiring than shifting around, which is why it matters as much that the chair moves with you as that it supports you.

In practice it comes down to three things. Free rocking with the tension set to your weight, so you can lean back without feeling the chair is getting away from you. Locking at the tilt you use for typing, which is usually a couple of degrees and not strictly upright. And feet supported, on the floor or on a footrest: MYLA has its own built-in, folding one, and for the rest there is the OSMA footrest.

Desk height is part of the equation. If the armrests do not fit under the desktop, you will not be able to pull in, and if the desk is high you will end up with hunched shoulders all day. That is why VORNA goes up and down at the touch of a button, and SKULD can be assembled at three heights.

For studying it is the same equation with fewer breaks and more hours in a row, so all of the above matters more, not less.