Do you suffer from chronic back pain? Is it possible that your current office chair may contribute to the problem?

If you answered yes to either of those questions and you’ve been considering other office seating options for home or work, you’ll be glad you found this page. In the following sections, we’ll explore the full range of kneeling chair benefits so you can get a good sense of whether or not an ergonomic kneeling chair is a good fit for you.

If your interest is piqued, read on, and let’s look closer.

Ergonomic Kneeling Chair Benefits—Initial Considerations

First and foremost, we should say that if you’re looking for a kneeling chair or stool that can serve as a 1:1 replacement for an office chair and you’re hoping that you can find something to spend all day sitting (kneeling) in, don’t get your hopes up.

Varier Variable Kneeling Chair with dark blue fabric upholstery and chair frame built from treated beech plywood
Kneeling Chair
Forever Beauty Ergonomic Adjustable Kneeling Stool with beech wood frame, padded seat and knee pads covered with beige fabric
Kneeling Stool

While there are many really good kneeling stools and chairs on the market today, this is not the type of seating you’d want to use if you plan to sit on it for 8+ hours daily. 

We recommend spending no more than 6 hours daily in even the best kneeling chairs on the market, and closer to 4 if you can get away with it.

If you’re only in your current office chair for 4-6 hours a day, then yes, in that specific instance, you can use a kneeling chair as a 1:1 replacement. But more than that, you’ll probably want one of each—a “regular” office chair and a kneeling chair—to benefit from both types of seating.

Woman reading a book and sitting on a black VIVO Kneeling Chair with breathable back support, thick cushions, and casters

The primary reason is that most kneeling stools don’t come with back support, and the ones tend to be pricey and offer either basic or no lumbar support.

That sees you confronting a two-edged sword. On the one hand, one of the main benefits of an ergonomic kneeling chair is that it enforces good posture. The downside is that it enforces that posture rather harshly, and this type of seating can be exhausting for extended periods.

Normally, this would be the section where we discuss upholstery as a major consideration because—at least in the world of office chairs—if you get one with leather or PU upholstery, the more time you spend in it, the hotter and less comfortable you’ll be.

Yaheetech Ergonomic Kneeling Chair with premium faux leather upholstery, sturdy black metal frame, and casters
Leather Upholstery
Khalz Ergonomic Kneeling Chair with black PU upholstery, extra thick padding, steel frame, and caster wheels
PU Upholstery

Here, that’s much less of an issue, both because our recommendation right out of the gate is not to spend too much time sitting on the kneeling chair in the first place and also because not nearly as much surface area of your body will wind up being in contact with the upholstery anyway. Hence, it’s just less of an issue all around.

The main consideration, then, is a budgetary one. Will your budget support investing in an office chair with good lumbar and other ergonomic support and a kneeling chair you can spend part of each day in?

If yes, you’re well-positioned to reap the best of both worlds.

Kneeling Office Chair Benefits—What Are They And How Good Are They

We hinted at the biggest one in the last section, but here, we’ll go into more detail. One of the hands-down biggest kneeling chair benefits is that this type of seating enforces correct posture. That’s not to say that you couldn’t find a way to sit “incorrectly” on a kneeling chair, but you’d have to go out of your way to do it, and it definitely wouldn’t be comfortable.

Curved back when using a regular office chair vs. straighter spine and better posture when sitting in a kneeling chair

First, let’s take a closer look at the posture angle.

When sitting in a regular office chair, you have a 90-degree angle between your spine and where your legs bend at your waist.

In a kneeling chair, that angle is set to about 110 degrees, which doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but in reality, it makes a very big difference because it places significantly less pressure on the discs of your spine. Other kneeling desk chair benefits include:

  • A correct pelvic alignment will have cast-off effects that will improve your breathing and digestion.
  • Over time, using this type of chair will strengthen your core and back muscles.
  • Your weight is distributed more evenly, and your back, neck, and shoulders naturally fall into proper alignment, further reducing spinal compression.

Everything about the kneeling chair’s design was meant to reduce pain, so if you’re a chronic pain sufferer, investing in one will almost certainly help.

On the other hand, sitting in any position for too long is bad for you, and that, combined with the fact that using a kneeling chair can be a somewhat exhausting experience, only underscores the importance of having both a conventional office chair and a kneeling chair.

If you’ve got both, you can “switch off” during the day, giving your core and back muscles a chance to rest from the unexpected workout they’ve been getting and giving your back a break from the limited—if not complete lack of—support.

In addition, spending too long in a kneeling chair can cause pain in your shins due to the increased pressure there. Since most kneeling chairs don’t have casters (a few do!), if you have to move around your office and you’re accustomed to doing so by simply rolling your chair around, you’re going to have to learn some new office habits.

Man wearing black long-sleeved shirt and khaki pants sitting in a Nobel Kneeling Chair, with grey padding and birch wood base

That’s when you’ll discover that getting into and out of a kneeling chair tends to be harder than a conventional office chair. It’s not a monumental task, but it is something to bear in mind.

The good news is that if you’re sold on the various kneeling chair health benefits, they tend to be lightly constructed, which makes them easy to move. So when you decide you’ve had enough for one day, it’s simple to pick it up and get it out of the way, then settle into your office chair for the remainder of your day.

Kneeling Posture Chair Benefits—Conclusion

There is a whole raft of kneeling stool benefits, and this type of seating is well worth considering, but there are a couple of important caveats.

The biggest one comes down to budgetary concerns. Kneeling chairs are best for no more than half of a typical workday—so no more than four hours.

If you spend only about 4 hours a day in your current office chair, a 1:1 replacement becomes totally viable. However, if you spend more time than that, you’ll want both (a kneeling chair and an office chair). Unfortunately, that’s not something that everyone will be able to afford.

The good news is that given the time constraints, upholstery concerns don’t really factor in because even if you get a leather or PU-clad kneeling chair, you won’t be spending enough time in it each day for the lack of breathability in the upholstery to become an issue.

At the end of the day, though, if you can afford it, the simple truth is that investing in a kneeling chair and using it for 3-4 hours a day will provide you with a variety of kneeling chair benefits, and if you suffer from chronic pain, it will help to reduce that. That fact makes them well worth considering.

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