lumbar support

The much-loved Gokhale® Pain-Free Chair was launched in 2012, celebrating the philosophy that sitting is a natural, healthy activity. This office chair was designed to facilitate stretchsitting and stacksitting, two key techniques of the Gokhale Method® that transform sitting into a comfortable activity that heals you rather than hurts you.

The Gokhale® Pain-Free Chair has many features that facilitate the therapeutic techniques of stretchsitting and stacksitting once their principles are understood.

The need for an executive chair design breakthrough 

But some of our students, alumni, and members of the public asked us for recommendations for an equally comfortable executive chair—one that allows for leaning back with neck support. We gave our best guidance on what features to look for, and which to avoid. I also offered Live Chats on sitting and written blog posts about seating options—two examples being How to Choose a Backrest, and Comparing and Contrasting the Herman Miller Aeron Chair and the Gokhale Pain-Free™ Chair.

The Herman Miller Aeron Chair (top left) is a market leader, and there are a myriad of other brands, designs, and specifications to choose from. Images from: The Herman Miller Aeron Chair, The Leap Chair, Litfad Executive Chair, Laporta Executive Chair

The features we consider healthy in an executive chair are rarely all available in one package. Many common features, like lumbar curves which distort the spine, bolsters that round the shoulders forward, and head rests that crane the head forward, are problematic and difficult to work around. 

We are now delighted to be able to offer our own Gokhale® Executive Chair solution.

The Gokhale® Executive Chair

About the Gokhale® Executive Chair

Our regular Gokhale Pain-Free chair works well as a home or office chair, but for a professional working long hours, a well-designed executive chair offers additional, relevant features. For example, it isn’t always practical for a busy executive to take a walk outdoors, lie down on the floor, or relax in a nearby cafe. But they still need to reflect, reset, and refresh.

The Gokhale® Executive Chair provides this. At the pull of a lever, the backrest smoothly angles back and even rocks a little for a profoundly relaxing pause or deep-thinking time.

The reclining function of our chair combines particularly well with cutaways which allow your shoulders to rest back, the stretchsit nubs on the backrest that enable you to gently traction your back, and a headrest that helps to elongate your neck.

We decided to make the Gokhale® Executive Chair a high-end offering. It is crafted in luxurious Italian leather (also available in high-quality fabric) and quality materials for comfort and durability. It has an adjustable headrest, adjustable back height, cutaways in the shoulder area, and my favorite recline function. 

The guiding principles of Gokhale Method design

This chair blends form and function attentively. Its contemporary look belies the fact that its design is based on the timeless principles of healthy human posture. Its purpose is to not only allow you to sit elegantly and comfortably for as long as you wish, but also to bestow all the therapeutic benefits of time spent sitting well.

Most of the executive chairs on the market are designed to appeal primarily to the dictates of fashion. There is a parallel situation with shoe design; fashion does not always respect what is compatible with our structure. Additionally, from a Gokhale Method perspective, chair design often reflects conventional ideas on how to sit, which is also at odds with our natural structure.

Many designers—and consumers—are constrained by well-intentioned but misguided ergonomic principles like the S-spine paradigm. This is why almost all adjustable chairs come with excessive lumbar and neck curvature. Our chair is different because it is shaped by our knowledge of the body’s natural J-spine architecture to provide exceptional comfort and healing. No other executive chair that we know of has a J-spine paradigm informing its design. The Gokhale® Executive Chair is also uniquely compatible with all the posture principles and techniques taught in our comprehensive Gokhale Method courses (the in-person Foundations course, or one-day Pop-up course, or our online Elements course).

Let’s take a close-up look at the posture-enhancing features that enable users to sit in ways that are comfortable and therapeutic.

The Gokhale® Executive Chair works for you so that you can work in comfort.

In the video below Gokhale Method Teacher Sabina Blumauer gives her first impressions of the Gokhale® Executive Chair.

You can order your Gokhale® Executive Chair here.

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like to know which posture changes will help you be pain-free and functional, schedule an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

You can sign up below to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops. . .

This blog post is about sitting with a backrest, which could be the back part of a chair, or something added to the chair for additional support and comfort. 

A well-designed backrest can contribute to a healthier back—but a poorly designed one can cause tension and pain. Pexels

Support and relief

Virtually any backrest will give relief that a tired back will appreciate. Support is certainly preferable when we sit for longer periods of time to enjoy reading, TV, a movie, or, if we are lucky, live theater. 

With the trunk slightly inclined against a backrest, there is less compressive force due to gravity acting on the spine. In addition, the trunk stabilizer muscles get a break. When we are driving or traveling by plane or train, a backrest also confers additional protection from vibration or any untoward impact. 

Backrests can certainly improve your comfort but it is also true that many do more harm than good. It makes sense to be discerning about your backrests and to understand the ways in which they can help or hurt.

Shaping your back 

There is unfortunately a significant disadvantage that is built into most modern backrests. A backrest will shape your back as you lean into it and almost all backrests introduce excess curvature, with a significant concave curve in the lower back (lumbar area) and a significant convex curve in the upper back (thoracic area). This is driven by the incorrect paradigm of the S-shaped spine.

This medical illustration of a spine (1990) is S-shaped, displaying the excessive curvature that can result in pinched nerves and compressed intervertebral discs. Traite d'Anatomie Humaine

This spinal shape is considered to be normal (as well as ideal) in today’s conventional wisdom. Physical therapists and medics are taught this S-shape paradigm, which is explained in detail in my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, and in our blog post Which Shape is Your Spine? 

The S-shaped spine has become the concept that determines the design of our furniture, including backrests for chairs and car seats. 

Most backrests follow the S-shaped spine paradigm and are designed to give “lumbar support.” This creates exaggerated curvature and compression in the lumbar spine.

Office and gaming chair backrests are often engineered with exaggerated contours. These distort the spine’s natural alignment. Such excessive curves curtail the spine’s ability to lengthen.

This style of easy chair has less drastic curves but will still result in some lumbar and upper back distortion; it also pushes the shoulders and head forward. Back2.co

This lounger has a mild thoracic curve which still encourages the upper back to round. 

What you want is a backrest that reflects and promotes the healthy spinal shape that we all enjoyed as toddlers and is still prevalent in many nonindustrialized areas of the world. The shape of a modern letter “J” is a good shorthand to describe this relatively straight alignment of the vertebral column and the pronounced angle at the lumbosacral junction. Unlike the S-shaped spine, there is no exaggerated lumbar sway or thoracic curvature. You can see this shape embodied in the Ubong hunter’s torso shown below. It is J-shaped rather than S-shaped. 

These Ubong tribesmen have a J-spine.

This medical illustration from 1911 more closely depicts the J-shape spine rather than the S-shape of modern conventional wisdom. The only pronounced curve is at the L5/S1 junction at the base of the spinal column.

A backrest with gentle traction

Beyond supporting a healthy J-shape in your spine, ideally a backrest would also stretch your spine, especially in the lumbar area. With a little know-how you can get hours of therapeutic traction into your day, reducing pressure on your spinal discs and nerves and improving circulation in the surrounding tissues. We call this combination of healthy shape and traction stretchsitting.

This schoolboy in Brazil has healthy posture and instinctively uses the backrest to stretchsit, lengthening his spine. 

How to choose a backrest

1. If your chair’s backrest already offers some friction (e.g., textured fabric) and you don’t mind adjusting it when you sit, a folded towel can serve you adequately for stretchsitting. This video will show you how.
2. Our Stretchsit® Cushion creates healthier contours and provides traction with its soft, grippy nubs. It comes with extension straps that hold its position without repeated adjustments.

The Gokhale Method Stretchsit® Cushion comes with adjustable straps and can transform most chairs and car seats.

Teaching stretchsitting with a Gokhale Method Stretchsit® Cushion on a folding chair.

3. The Gokhale Pain-Free™chair is designed to provide healthy contours and traction for stretchsitting. It has the additional advantage of having a built-in wedge, a waterfall front, and other features making it suitable for stacksitting (sitting without a backrest). 

The Gokhale Pain-Free™chair has a custom forged “back upright” (the metal piece that goes between the seat pan and the backrest) to allow your behind to be behind. This allows your spine to have a healthy J-shape. The backrest has sticky nubs sewn into it to provide therapeutic gentle traction.

Free Online Workshop

If you would like to find out more about healthy sitting, including using a backrest, sign up for my FREE Online Workshop.

Earlier in the history of our company, we didn’t intend to create any posture products and thought education alone would be sufficient. We still stand by our philosophy that education is the most important ingredient in restoring primal posture.  

Posture braces, seat cushions, and shirts are not able to take the place of hands-on coaching to establish posture ideals or healthy ways of getting to those ideals. The Gokhale Method trains people on the look and feel of healthy posture; now you can choose aids wisely to support you.

Posture devices as seen above usually induce people to switch from one bad posture (slumping) to another (arching). Most people believe they need to "sit up straight." In fact, arched posture can do as much harm as slumping does. Hands-on training by a Gokhale Method teacher can teach you truly healthy posture; following that, a reminder system, whether like the one above or a simple alarm that goes off periodically, will induce you to reset yourself in a healthy way.  

There’s no magic cushion, or brace, or buzzing device that will give someone perfect posture without hands-on coaching. But over the years, our students' input and feedback taught us to see that there is significant value to be had from certain types of posture aids.

We still teach the use of a towel as a great stretchsitting device, but before we developed the Stretchsit Cushion, we frequently received feedback about how people found it difficult—or impossible—to use a towel on their wooden chair, their plastic outdoor furniture, or their slippery office chair. They hated trying to use rubber bands and bungee cords and clothes pegs, and having to refold or readjust the towel to be the right size.

The towel method works for some seats, but many students found it frustrating to set up or adjust.

We kept hearing, “Can’t you just make something I can throw on a chair easily?” So we listened.

Having the Stretchsit Cushion in your car means you spend significantly less time setting up and adjusting your cushions, and it can't slip out of place!

Developing and manufacturing a product was new for me and for the company, so it took a few tries to get to where we are today. I learned a lot about persistence.

Our first round of the Stretchsit Cushion, V1, had oval rubber nubs. Pro: very sticky! Con: the stitches tore through the rubber from the shear forces of stretchsitting—people stuck too well! It’s better that the compression forces went to the nubs rather than the discs in people’s back, but our customers were naturally disappointed when their cushions failed.

This was V1 of the Stretchsit Cushion.

Instead of endlessly replacing products, we moved on to a tougher, textured nub that is stuffed with foam to be more durable.

The Stretchsit cushion's nubs are now made from a strong, textured material that will provide friction without ripping.

A lot of nubs to help a lot of spinal discs!

Additionally we switched to stronger, more color-fast fabric so cushions in cars or sunlit rooms don't get sun-bleached. We also used a more durable foam for the body of the cushion - one that is malleable enough to accommodate many spine shapes, but strong enough to stand up to wear and tear over time without deteriorating.

The front panel of the cushion created by a seamstress using a sewing machine.

It took us several rounds of production to get to the great cushion we have today. We were determined to not compromise on the quality of the materials or the function of the product. When we first started designing the cushion, we didn’t know all the factors we would have to take into account to reach a really high standard. Now we are proud that our cushion receives very few complaints and an awful lot of praise!

The Stretchsit cushion is available from a teacher near you, our website, or Amazon.

FAQs

Q: Where can I purchase a Stretchsit Cushion?

A: If you are taking a Gokhale Method class, we recommend purchasing one directly from your teacher. Otherwise, you can buy them from our website or from Amazon.com. You can save on bundles of 2 or 3 cushions, available only through our website.

Q: Why is there such firm / soft foam in the cushion? Wouldn’t a softer / harder cushion be more comfortable?

A: There are research studies showing that medium-firm mattresses provide people with the most comfort and support. We’ve discovered this to be true for our stretchsit cushion as well. On one hand, we wanted it to be supportive; on the other, we wanted it to be comfortable and conform to a variety of body shapes. We played with the hardness of the foam and of the nubs, and after many iterations have come to a harmonious place, similar to a medium-firm mattress.

Each nub is stuffed with foam of an appropriate density so it will protrude from the cushion without being uncomfortable against the back.

Q: Why isn’t the Stretchsit Cushion cheaper, when I can find $25 foam cushions at stores like Bed Bath & Beyond?

A: We find our Stretchsit Cushion is actually less expensive than high-end lumbar supports or memory foam pads, but yes, there are cheaper foam cushions on the market. Many of these cheap options deteriorate quickly, and aren’t dense enough to provide significant support (although they will soften a hard or rough surface, if that is all that is desired).

In the Gokhale Method philosophy, lumbar supports do not solve, and may exacerbate, the problem of compression by causing a sway in the lumbar spine (lumbar supports are designed to encourage the S-shaped spinal ideal that we teach away from). What’s needed is a thoracic support that offers friction, which isn't possible with a simplistic single block of molded foam and a fabric cover.

A typical lumbar support cushion may exacerbate a sway and doesn't support a J-spine.

To provide function and comfort at the standard we hold ourselves to requires a higher level of sophistication, which we’re very happy to have reached in the Stretchsit Cushion. The production process for our cushion is rather intricate, and to make small high-friction nubs of appropriately strong material requires the individual nubs to be worked by someone using a sewing machine rather than industrial sewing. This, and the quality of our materials, is what dictates the price of our cushion. We receive numerous reports on how much benefit people get out of their cushions, so we consider that although it can seem expensive at first, when the cushion is considered as an investment in the health of your spinal discs, nerves, and vertebrae, it is really a steal!

Q: Should I buy your cushion and use it with my current chair or buy the Gokhale Pain Free Chair?

A: You will need the cushion for your carseat and in chairs that you have no control of. We sell a bundle of three cushions because people frequently want one for the car, one for their work chair, and one for their computer chair at home.

If you are in the market for a chair, the Gokhale Pain Free chair is a marvelous investment. It has a 10 year warranty on parts (here too we did not skimp on quality or function), and will support you in stretchsitting (it has a built-in stretchsit cushion) as well as in stacksitting (it has a built-in wedge). It has other helpful features like a “mushroom top” seat to facilitate external rotation of the legs, and no armrests so you can come in close to your work surface (if your shoulders are properly rolled open, you will not miss the arm rests). No other chair has these features.

The Gokhale Method Pain-Free Chair has a built-in Stretchsit Cushion and a built-in wedge with additional nubs in the seat for greater traction.

That said, if you are financially pressed, we recommend economizing by buying the Stretchsit Cushion and using a folded blanket for stacksitting. These inexpensive additions to your chair allow you to achieve healthy posture; the drawback is that it won’t look as elegant and you will need to adjust your implements periodically.

Watch our videos for guidance on using your Stretchsit Cushion: