Keytools recommends that desk height may need adjustment and users should not be reaching up or down to the desk. Read our advice on ergonomic desks and find out how to buy them.

Well fitted office chairs are only part of the picture in today's computer office. They help you maintain neutral low back postures. Chairs do little to help your wrists, elbows, shoulders, and neck stay in neutral postures, yet upper extremity and neck disorders are rapidly overtaking lower back pain as the leading cause of lost work days, not to mention productivity draining discomfort!

Think about it: as you reach for your phone, stapler, keyboard, or mouse, or when you look at screens or copy, you compromise your arm and neck postures unless these reach and viewing targets have been placed just right for you, i.e., on an adjustable work surface. Try this: sit comfortably in your chair. Unless your desk height is approximately your elbow height, it's too high or too low for you. Notice how you slump or shrug when you work at your desk? Now reach for a telephone or a reference book on the desk. Does your chair protect your "perfect posture"? Probably not. When work surfaces fit workers as well as chairs do, and their equipment and papers are placed where they can comfortably see and reach them, then all the joints-low back, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and neck--are in neutral postures. Without adjustable work surfaces, adjustable chairs are much less effective.

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