Best Office Chair for Leg Pain 2023

Our Pick: Serta Big & Tall Smart Layers Office Chair 

Serta dominates this roundup review, winning not just the top spot but the second-place position as well. Perhaps this is not surprising, given the company’s experience in designing comfortable mattresses. 

Although the Smart Layers Tranquility doesn’t have an exciting or edgy aesthetic, it more than makes up for it in terms of comfort, which is far and away this chair’s main selling point. It’s quite possibly the most comfortable chair you’ll ever have the pleasure of sitting in.

Chair Specification

Before we get to that, however, let’s start with a review of the basic stats that drive the model. These include:

A couple of observations here. First, based on the warranty, you know you’re getting a quality piece of furniture here. This isn’t a bargain basement chair that the designers aren’t sure about.

Second, it’s big. Although it’s not the heaviest chair on our list, the dimensions mark it as being a chair designed for bigger and taller folk, and both the height adjustment range and the maximum supported weight support and reinforce this idea.

Premium Elite Smart Layers

Given the focus of our review, it probably won’t surprise many readers to learn that our top pick uses a proprietary comfort system in the place of conventional block foam or even memory foam. The Tranquility chair has a comfort system like nothing we’ve ever seen, consisting of several different layers, each building on the last providing a one-of-a-kind seating experience. 

Arguably, the Tranquility boasts a sixth comfort layer, because all of the elements we just talked about rest inside a padded comfort cradle. Needless to say, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any other chair, offered at any price that has a more comprehensive comfort system.

As we said, it’s out of this world. We’ve never encountered its equal, which is amazing given the chair’s relatively modest price.

Ergonomic Features

It gets even better though, because the Tranquility chair offers more than just a comfortable place to sit. It also features some powerful ergonomic features, including:

Seat

For our purposes, the waterfall-style edge seat is of special interest, and when combined with the Tranquility’s robust comfort system, it makes this model the best office chair for poor leg circulation overall, in our view.

Even better, all of these ergonomic features are quite strongly implemented, and they all work together to enhance the effectiveness of the chair further. If you suffer from chronic pain pretty much anywhere on your body and struggle to stay productive throughout the day, this chair can help, mixing extreme comfort with powerful ergonomic features to help reduce your discomfort and keep you productive even after hours at the keyboard.

Armrests

Of the Tranquility’s ergonomic features, the armrests are, in our view, the weakest of the bunch. They’re comfortable and well-padded, but they’re not adjustable in any way. That’s certainly not a deal breaker for most people, but it is a limitation worth at least mentioning.

Lumbar Support

Although the waterfall-edge style seat is the feature we are most concerned with for this roundup review, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the Tranquility’s next-level lumbar support system.

Here, the company utilizes a proprietary technology they call “Pivoting Air Lumbar Support,” which provides a more dynamic level of lumbar support than passive belts or pads used by other companies. Even better, it does that while increasing the breathability of the chair across the entire seatback. 

Adjustability

As impressive as the Tranquility is when it comes to comfort and ergonomic features, it’s less impressive in terms of adjustability. The only aspect of the chair you can adjust is the height of the seat.

In fact, although the Tranquility rocks slightly, it doesn’t recline at all, which is an admitted limitation, but not, in our view, a crippling one.

Verdict

In our view, the Tranquility is close to being the perfect office chair. While opinions will certainly vary, we find the combination of features to be close to perfect, and the and the few limitations the chair has are largely unimportant to us. If you find yourself feeling the same way, then the final choice is a simple one. If comfort is your primary concern, the Serta Tranquility is the chair you want.

Runner-Up: Serta Works Back in Motion Executive Office Chair

Serta is best known for their excellent mattresses, but the company makes a wide range of furniture as well, including a line of excellent office chairs, with the Serta Works being one of their best-selling models. 

Chair Specification

Before we get too deep into the particulars, let’s do a quick recap of the basic stats that define this model:

Although it’s got a modest maximum supported weight limit, the rest of the chair’s stats are all in alignment with this, clearly marking the model as one being built for regular-sized folk, with a seat height adjustment range that doesn’t stray far into what would be considered big and tall territory. Given these stats, the Works is a good fit for a broad swath of the market, although you’ll want to take careful measurements to be sure it’s a good fit for you before buying.

Comfort

The team behind the Serta Works didn’t take any chances with the chair, giving it a traditional aesthetic. Lurking beneath that ordinary appearance, however, is a powerful comfort system based on the company’s Comfort Coils, which is the same technology they put into their mattresses.

Although the Serta Works doesn’t boast a ton of block foam padding, it doesn’t really need it. When combined with the comfort coils, the experience of sitting in the chair is heads and shoulders above most other chairs on the market today, only being beaten out by another model offered by Serta, the Big and Tall Tranquility.

Ergonomic Features

Of course, comfort has more than one dimension, and ergonomic features matter. Again though, the Serta Works shines with a trio of well-implemented features, including:

For our purposes, of course, the waterfall-edge style seat is most important, but of the three, it’s the lumbar support that really shines on this model.

Back In Motion Lumbar Support

It’s designed to incorporate a proprietary technology called Back in Motion (BIM) which means that any time you shift or move in the chair, the lumbar support follows you so that you’ll always have exactly the support you need, exactly when you need it.

Posture-Correct Tilt

The Serta Works also incorporates a second proprietary technology called posture-correct tilt, which causes the seat of the chair to tilt as you move, adjusting its position so it always keeps your spine in a neutral position.

At first blush, this might not seem like a huge thing, but it’s something that many of the chair’s owners have commented on, both positive and negative.

People who love it say it’s the best aspect of the chair, with many of them saying they’ll never buy another piece of office furniture that doesn’t have the feature.

On the other side of the fence, some people say that the constant “following motion” of the seat back is annoying, unsettling and in some cases downright uncomfortable. Granted, this is a minority view, but it certainly bears mentioning.

Assembly

Of course, as with most of the office furniture sold today, you’ll have to put the Serta Works together when it makes its way to your door. Given the high production quality and the clarity of the instructions, this isn’t a complicated process and shouldn’t take you longer than thirty minutes. It will go even faster if you enlist the aid of a trusty assistant on the day the chair gets to you.

Verdict

Overall, it’s an excellent model that puts Serta’s office furniture design skills on prominent display, and the company even offers it in both a fabric-clad and leather-clad variant, so you can pick whichever type of upholstery you prefer. Whichever option you choose, know that you’ll be getting one of the best office chairs for circulation on the market today. 

Value Pick: La-Z-Boy Hyland Office Chair

Just about everybody living in the United States knows the name La Z Boy. They’re a legend in the home furnishing business. What fewer people realize, however, is that La Z Boy also makes a small selection of office furniture, with the Hyland being one of their high-end models.

It’s an unquestionably stylish and attractive chair, and it’s got some well-implemented features. Unfortunately, it suffers from what we consider to be a fatal flaw that limits its overall value, which is why it only managed to rank third on our list of finalists.

Chair Specifications

We’ll get to its fatal flaw in just a moment. Before we do that, let’s start with a review of the chair’s basic stats, which include:

Based on these stats, the main thing that becomes clear is that although the seat height adjustment range makes it appear that this would be a good fit for big and tall people, the maximum supported weight limit just doesn’t support that idea. It’s a good fit for regular-sized folk and taller people with longer legs and a light to medium build.

Comfort

Assuming you’ve got the right build for the chair, the comfort factor is what’s likely to prompt you to pick this model over any other. It offers a simply incredible seating experience, mostly on account of the memory foam used in its construction.

Memory foam is the gold standard of seat padding and is highly prized whenever and wherever it is found. Sure, it’s pricey, but this is one of those instances where you get what you pay for. 

Once you’ve had the pleasure of sitting in a memory foam chair, you’ll never want to go back to something padded with block foam, and the presence of all that memory foam makes the Hyland one of the best office chairs for buttock pain on the market today. So if that’s the problem you’re trying to solve, this one definitely belongs on your shortlist.

Ergonomic Features

In addition to being delightfully comfortable, the Hyland has a trio of excellent ergonomic features that further enhance the comfort of the model. These are:

For the purposes of this review, the waterfall-edge style seat is of particular interest, but all three of these are great additions to the chair, although, given the Hyland’s price, we were somewhat disappointed to see that the lumbar support was in no way adjustable.

Upholstery

Now let’s talk about the one thing that stands out as a glaring weakness in our minds. For reasons unknown, the La Z Boy design team made the decision to upholster their very attractive high-quality chair with bonded leather.

Bonded leather is real leather, but it is created by fusing leather scraps together. As such, it’s better than PU, but not nearly as supple or strong as genuine grain leather. It will start showing its age after just a couple of years when you’ll notice peeling and cracking.

Given the price of the chair, this is beyond disappointing and worse; it makes it impossible to recommend this chair for periods of heavy daily usage because bonded leather isn’t breathable. 

It’s fine for short to medium seating stints, but if you plan on spending the better part of every day in your chair, you’re going to be sweaty and miserable well before the day ends.

Verdict

Make no mistake, this is a good chair, but the design decisions the team made in putting it together have ensured that it is a fairly narrowly focused model that will only serve a small segment of the market. The person for whom the Hyland is an ideal fit is someone who:

If that’s you, the comfort factor alone will put the Hyland on your short list. If not, almost any other option on our list of finalists will serve you better.

We like the Hyland, but we don’t love it, but note that despite the chair’s shortcomings and limitations, it still managed to place middle of the pack, and that’s really saying something!

Also Great

GM Seating Ergolux Executive Chair

GM Seating’s Ergolux office chair is a wonder. It’s a handsome, well-built and well-appointed chair you’ll be proud to own, but there’s a catch. It’s also a harsh mistress. We’ll explain what we mean in detail just below, but before we do that, let’s start with a quick review of the stats that define the model. 

Chair Specifications

As you can see, these stats define the chair as one being for average-sized people or taller folks with long legs and light to average build. Although the seat height adjustment range is in the big and tall zone, the maximum supported weight doesn’t support the idea of this being an actual big and tall chair.

The other thing that should practically leap off the page is the seat depth! Few chairs on the market today come with an adjustable seat depth which automatically puts the Ergolux in a rare, special group of office chairs, and as you’ll see, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Upholstery & Color Options

While a lot of leather office furniture being sold in the US are bonded leather or PU, the Ergolux is different. It is clad in real, high-quality grain leather and even better, you can order yours in a modest selection of colors, including black, burgundy, or white.

These things, the sheer adjustability of the chair, and GM Seating’s choice of upholstery materials mark the Ergolux as a piece of top-end office furniture, which also means you’re going to pay a top-end price.

Comfort

Comfort wise, although the Ergolux is a very pretty chair, it really doesn’t look like it would be all that comfortable. Looks, however, can be deceiving. It is a comfortable chair but sitting in it takes some getting used to. This goes back to what we mentioned at the start about this chair being a bit of a harsh mistress. It won’t let you get away with slouching or sitting in it with poor posture.

You’re either going to sit properly in this chair, or you’re not going to be comfortable. The Ergolux doesn’t brook any middle ground. This fact has divided Ergolux buyers into two camps: If you embrace the good posture this chair demands of you, you’re going to love it and wonder how you ever got along without it.

If you continue to try to slouch and buck good posture, you’re going to despise the Ergolux and give it away so you can buy some other chair that will let you get away with slouching. We see this as a big positive, but you may not agree for the first couple of days you sit in it!

Adjustability

Adjustability, though, is where the Ergolux truly shines. Let’s start at the chair’s headrest and work our way down, giving a quick mention of everything you can adjust:

Ergonomic Features

In addition to being highly adjustable, the Ergolux boasts a trio of outstanding ergonomic features, including the one that’s most important to us, a waterfall-edge style seat that works with the chair’s padding to help provide an even more comfortable sitting experience (again, as long as you take care to sit properly!).

The ergonomic headrest and lumbar support are both very well-implemented too, but these are somewhat less important for our purposes here in this roundup.

Verdict

Overall, we regard this chair as being a superb choice for light to moderate daily use. It’s well-made and has well-rendered ergonomic features, but the relatively low weight limit is a hint that the chair is constructed using relatively lighter materials, which is also expressed in the fact that it’s the lightest office chair on our list of finalists.

These things, combined with its leather upholstery, make it a poor choice for heavy daily use unless sitting in leather for hours on end doesn’t make you sweat. If you’re looking for something that will serve you well for 3-4-hour periods at a time, though, this one’s hard to beat.

Secretlab Titan Gaming Chair

If you’ve never heard of Secretlab, know that you’re not alone. It’s supposed to be a secret, after all, right? 

All kidding aside, the reason you probably haven’t heard of the brand is simply that they don’t have a large footprint or a lot of brand heft. A closer look at the products they make, however, reveals that they know a lot about office and gaming furniture.

The Titan is the flagship model of the company’s small lineup, and there’s a lot to like about it. To begin, let’s review the basic stats that drive and define the model.

Chair Specifications

As you can see, this is a substantial piece of furniture with a height range that marks it as being for bigger, taller folk. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the weight limit to serve that market well, so the people at the top end of that market segment won’t find this chair suitable.

Even so, it is useful to a broad swath of the market and of special interest to taller, long-legged folk who are of slight to average build.

Aesthetics

Unlike every other chair on this list, the Titan is a modern, edgy-looking racing-style chair. It looks like the seats you typically find in a sports car. If you like that aesthetic, you’ll probably love this chair. If you’re not a fan, you probably won’t even give it a second look.

In terms of its physical appearance, the other thing that sets it apart from our other finalists is the fact that there are large logos on the Titan, prominently displayed. If you’re buying this chair for a home office, that’s probably okay, though again, it might be off-putting to some, but if you’re looking for a chair to use in a corporate environment, the in-your-face branding is probably the kiss of death.

Customization

Interestingly, this is a rather prominent aspect of the design. It’s so significant that when you place your order, you can choose to swap out the normal Titan logo with a modest selection of others, which include:

Note that there is no option to order your Titan without a logo at all.

Color Options

In addition to selecting your logo, the chair is available in a small selection of color options, which are:

Upholstery

Even if you’re not a fan of the logos, the presence of so many options, combined with the color options make the Titan a chair that gives you lots of personalization options, but it gets better. You can order your Titan upholstered in your choice of PU, breathable fabric, or high-quality Nappa leather.

Although PU is far and away the least expensive upholstery option, we don’t recommend it. The overall production quality of the chair is quite high, and the Titan was clearly designed to withstand the rigors of heavy daily usage.

PU vs Nappa Leather

PU isn’t. It’s just not a good fit with the chair as a whole and odds are that if you order yours with PU, you’ll find yourself frustrated when the upholstery starts showing its age a lot faster than you hoped it would.

If you’re a fan of leather, the Nappa leather option is a great choice. But, in our view, this limits the chair to light or moderate daily use because the lack of breathability will make it uncomfortably hot for extended periods of sitting. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference and how hot you get while seated in a leather-clad chair.

The Titan is more than an interesting chair to look at, however. It’s also built for comfort and has a pair of well-implemented ergonomic features, which we’ll take a look at next.

Padding

Comfort-wise, beneath whatever upholstery you select, you’ll find generous amounts of cold-cured block foam padding. Cold-cured padding is superior to conventional block foam in that it tends to hold its shape better and helps distribute your weight more evenly. While it’s definitely an improvement over conventional block foam, it falls short of being as comfy as memory foam, occupying space somewhere in between those two.

Head & Neck Pillow

The chair also comes with a head and neck pillow for those times when you’re ready for a break and recline back in the chair (maximum recline angle of 150 degrees). Of interest, the pillow is padded with memory foam and is a fantastic little ‘extra’ that you’ll love.

Ergonomic Features

We mentioned two ergonomic features earlier. These are:

Of the two, the one of most interest to us for the purposes of this review is the waterfall-edge style seat because it enhances the already excellent comfort offered by the cold-cured foam padding and helps improve your leg circulation, especially during those times when you have to sit for extended periods.

The implementation of the lumbar support is outstanding (and adjustable!), which is proof positive that Secretlab knows their way around the furniture market and is likely to be a major force in years to come.

Armrests

Although the armrests of the chair aren’t ergonomically designed, they are well worth spending a moment talking about. In addition to being well-padded and comfortable, they’re also both height and width adjustable, giving you even more options in terms of customizing and personalizing the chair and your seating experience in it.

Adjustability

This kind of adjustability is generally pretty rare except at the top end of the market. To find so many adjustment options here, on a surprisingly modestly priced chair, and to find them so well implemented by a company that most people have never heard of is nothing short of amazing.

Assembly

The Titan won’t arrive at your doorstep assembled, but the instructions are clear and the process straightforward. Be advised though, that this is a big chair and if you’re trying to assemble it on your own, you’re probably going to struggle. You’re much better off having an extra pair of hands when putting this one together.

Verdict

Overall, we were hugely impressed by this chair, although we’ll be quick to point out that it’s not for everyone. The racing-style seat and the in-your-face logos will just put some people off. Even so, this is a great chair for power users and can easily withstand the rigors of heavy daily use.

Best Office Chair for Coccyx Pain in 2023

In a similar vein, we also spent some time investigating the best office chairs for dealing with coccyx pain. If you’re not sure what that is, you probably don’t suffer from it, but we’ll define the term before proceeding.

In a nutshell, your coccyx is your tailbone. More specifically, it’s a triangular array of bone that marks the very end of your spine, just below the sacrum. If you’ve ever suffered an injury to that part of your body, you know what a nightmare it can be to try and get anything done. 

While it’s true that generally speaking, the best office chairs for leg pain will also offer at least some relief from coccyx pain too, specifically, for this subcategory, we turned our attention to the realm of more unconventional office chairs, and present our findings below: