Feet Placement With The Work Station

Question

Answer

Once we determined if the foot stool is needed or not, I try and remind the client on what to avoid. One of the things to avoid is the placing feet underneath the castors. It's very common. But again, what does that do? It takes the knee into a lower knee to hip position which then changes the curvature of the back. Typically it encourages you to sit at the edge of your chair. That can make a significant change on your efforts necessary to perform upper extremity tasks. In addition, I do talk to females and males on the types of shoes that they wear because if I set your work station and you have got on flat shoes for the day and tomorrow you come in, (more the reason I needed to educate you on how to sit in your chair) with a 6" heel, it is going to change the height necessary of your chair to sit properly for that day. You really do need to spend as much educating the person as you do modifying the station because something as simple as a change in shoes will make them have to change their station and the height of their station as it relates to the seat.  The other area that we talk about is changing feet position.   Unless they are crossing legs for a stretching reason (to stretch the piriformis, etc), it should not occur. It is okay to extend the legs out for a little stretch for up to 5 or 10 minutes. But it isn't okay to put your legs behind the castors, or on the castors, or perform sitting on the feet or crossing the legs.