Effects of a Dynamic Chair on Chair Seat Motion and Trunk Muscle Activity during Office Tasks and Task Transitions
1
Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, University Hospital Basel, 4031 Basel, Switzerland
2
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Basel, 4123 Allschwil, Switzerland
3
Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Basel, 4052 Basel, Switzerland
4
Department of Intervention Research in Exercise Training, German Sport University Cologne, 50933 Köln, Germany
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15(12), 2723; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15122723
Received: 5 November 2018 / Revised: 28 November 2018 / Accepted: 29 November 2018 / Published: 3 December 2018
(This article belongs to the Section Health Behavior, Chronic Disease and Health Promotion)
Employing dynamic office chairs might increase the physical (micro-) activity during prolonged office sitting. We investigated whether a dynamic BioSwing® chair increases chair sway and alters trunk muscle activation. Twenty-six healthy young adults performed four office tasks (reading, calling, typing, hand writing) and transitions between these tasks while sitting on a dynamic and on a static office chair. For all task-transitions, chair sway was higher in the dynamic condition (p < 0.05). Muscle activation changes were small with lower mean activity of the left obliquus internus during hand writing (p = 0.07), lower mean activity of the right erector spinae during the task-transition calling to hand writing (p = 0.036), and higher mean activity of the left erector spinae during the task-transition reading to calling (p = 0.07) on the dynamic chair. These results indicate that an increased BioSwing® chair sway only selectively alters trunk muscle activation. Adjustments of chair properties (i.e., swinging elements, foot positioning) are recommended.
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Keywords:
dynamic sitting; office chair; muscle activation; inactivity; sedentarism
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MDPI and ACS Style
Nüesch, C.; Kreppke, J.-N.; Mündermann, A.; Donath, L. Effects of a Dynamic Chair on Chair Seat Motion and Trunk Muscle Activity during Office Tasks and Task Transitions. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018, 15, 2723.
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