I am an old programmer, and a game and surf addict. I have been spending hours and hours a day in a chair for decades: my work, then my evenings of computer games, are all done sitting. My sports — surfing, windsurfing, standup paddling — are wonderful for the body in the water, but alas, they do not fix the static hours spent at a desk. Over time, my hips started to stiffen, and I realized my sessions were not enough to compensate for all that sitting.

So I decided to fix the problem where it happens: at the desk itself.

Why a saddle chair?🔗

The idea of a saddle chair is to make you sit like you stand. On a normal chair your thighs are horizontal, at a 90° angle to your body, which presses your vertebrae and disks together at the front and strains the back muscles. A saddle chair opens the hip angle to about 135°, tilts your pelvis forward, and restores the natural S-curve of the spine instead of the slouched C of a regular seat. The weight goes on your sitting bones rather than your thighs, which is what your hips and knees like. It is a bit like sitting on a bicycle saddle, but on a proper chair.

Sitting like standing: the pelvis forward, the spine in its natural S-curve.

The Salli🔗

I bought a Salli, the Finnish pioneer of the saddle chair, with its patented two-part seat and an adjustable gap in the middle — which also keeps things dry and pressure-free down there, a nice bonus.

The first days were promising for my hips. The main practical points:

• You must raise your desk by 15 to 20 cm. The saddle sits you higher than a normal chair. Conveniently, the tabletop height for saddle sitting works for standing too, so a standing desk handles both.
• No backrest needed. Once the pelvis is tilted forward, your back holds itself in its natural upright position and does not strain as it does slouched. I did not miss the backrest at all.
• It is tiring at first. The muscles that hold you upright are suddenly working, so I could only manage about an hour the first days. But you progress fast: after two weeks it was genuinely fine, and my hips clearly appreciated it.

(my setup — a bit of a surprise to visitors, but worth it)

A note for the desk-bound🔗

If you work seated and have back or hip pain, it is worth knowing that in some places such a chair can be bought on a doctor's prescription, like mine was — so check with your doctor or employer before paying full price yourself.

Which prompted me, as usual, to think: if I am going to spend so many hours a day in a chair, the chair had better be a good one. My walking pad fights the sitting, and now the Salli makes the sitting itself far less harmful. Two sides of the same problem.

Long live not sitting like a lump!