It is official, driving trucks for a living is as bad for your spine hiking with 80 plus pound rucksacks.
Well, that may be a bit of hyperbole. The studies have finally concluded that sitting for several hours a day is a detriment to the health of your back, among other body parts.
It isn’t a difficult leap to make (and for anyone who has ever driven long distances for a living, it isn’t a leap at all). I mean living a sedentary lifestyle has long been attributed to poor health, and aches/pains that should only be experienced by people at (shall we say) advanced ages.
And what says sedentary lifestyle like sitting in a seat for 8 plus hours at a time? Not to mention, loading and offloading of vehicles can sometimes be a literal “backbreaker.”
Luckily, there is a sweet science that can help alleviate some of those back pains that we experience after spending multiple hours (sometimes in the double digits) in a seat bouncing with the motion of the truck each time we hit an unavoidable pothole.
That science is called ergonomics.
What is ergonomics?
I’m sure we have all heard this term before. They talk about it in office settings; they talk about it when we have to “learn” how to lift boxes. Hell, they even talk about it when we’re at the mattress stores. But what does it mean?
The simple answer is, ergonomics is the study of the bodies efficiency and the process of making your workspace fit that mold as perfectly as possible.
Ergonomics helps to keep your body in top shape even when you have to be stationary for extended periods of time.
How does ergonomics help?
Our bodies evolved for thousands of years to be a specific form, and when we are in that natural state, it is considered to be our natural resting states. Only recently (relative to evolution) have we started living our lives mostly sitting in chairs, a position that incidentally is unnatural thus bad for our bodies.
All of us have caught ourselves slouching or hunching over the steering wheel during long road trips, and it is no stretch to say that the back pains we experience as professional drivers are, in large part, due to that slouching.
Posture is everything when it comes to alleviating back pain (maybe not everything but you get the picture) and the seats in our truck don’t often offer the proper support to allow us to sit with correct posture. But find yourself a good “ergonomic” chair, and that posture will be corrected in no time.
Leading to a drastic reduction of back pain - at least the kind caused by poor posture.
How do ergonomic chairs work?
It is no secret that ergonomic chairs are a life save for anybody that works at a desk for a living, and it is equally (if not more so) important for professional drivers.
In fact, it has been said by numerous outlets that ergonomic seats don’t just keep your back aches to a minimum, it even keeps you more alert while driving. This is literally life-saving when you’re behind the wheel of a multi-ton rig with a payload attached.
The idea is this. If you keep your spine in a neutral position, your body is resting naturally. Therefore, you experience less pain, and a side effect of that is you are spending less time worrying about that pain and more time paying attention to what is going on around you.
What does a proper ergonomically designed chair look like?
There isn’t one universal answer for this. The term “ergonomic chair” is basically a fancy phrase for, “a chair that is perfectly tailored to your body” so the chair you get might be different from your buddies’ chair. But there are some guidelines of course.
Height
The height of your seat should allow your feet to be flat (on the floor of course) and your knees bent at a 90° angle.
Back Rest
Angle your backrest at a slight recline, it will offer you some comfort, and it keeps your spine from compressing from the top down
Lumbar Support
We all know how vital lumbar support is, shoot we’ve probably all been diagnosed with lumbar problems before. I’m pretty sure that is the worst type of back pain outside of a broken back.
Proper lumbar support keeps your spine in a neutral position and reduces slouching exponentially. We’re talking a significant amount, and as we said earlier, that slouching is a considerable portion of the reason we have back pain.
Distance to the steering wheel
Sit too close to the steering wheel, and your body is cramped. Sit too far from the steering wheel, and you have to lean too far forward, and you’ve basically wasted all that hard-earned money on an expensive ergonomic chair.
Why? Because now you’ve got to slouch just to reach the steering wheel.
Suspension
Typically, when you think suspension, we are thinking of what’s under your vehicle. The suspension under your seat isn’t as important of course, but still important nonetheless. The point of this is that when you’re traveling over rough surfaces, your seat suspension takes the brunt of the impact saving your body from the additional stress.
So, what is the solution?
I have been told by my physician, on numerous occasions, that one of the most common reasons people visit her is to complain about back pains. And it’s no wonder. As a nation, the vast majority of us spend hours sitting at a desk in discomfort. For truck drivers, well, we have it even worse.
The solution, similar to office furniture, is pretty simple albeit expensive. Find yourself a good ergonomic chair.
An ergonomic chair will help your body stay in its natural position, keeping you pain-free and more alert during your long trips. And hey, it isn’t just your back that benefits. These chairs are the “cushioniest”, most comfy chairs your rear end will ever rest in. I promise this is an investment worth making.
