Giving Back Curves With BackJoy
We received a package in the mail with a single mysterious black plastic piece in it. No box, no note. Our staff loves a mystery, so speculations began at once. "Shield?" suggested someone. "Avant-garde hat?" another parried. We began designing a new sport, where it doubled as a bat and a catching glove. After a few more tries, someone plopped on the floor on top of it and started spinning. It was oddly comfortable. It turns out it's the new BackJoy, an orthotic designed to combat back pain.
Admittedly, most of us are not the target market for the BackJoy. We do, however, spend many hours sitting at computers, typing our thoughts for you, so we thought we'd give it a whirl. It's extremely light-weight, with a handle hand-hold for hauling between home, car and office, so minimal effort. In fact, the material might feel familiar- it's made from Advanced Core Material. The same stuff as in Crocs! The idea is pretty simple- we sit slouching all day, neglecting proper seated muscular support, and ignorant as to what our proper postures should be. The BackJoy is designed to cup your butt muscles and prop you into a non-slouching angle.
For the more anatomically technical among you, the seat assumes that you're sitting behind your sitz bones with a posterior pelvic tilt (aka, your low back is curving unnaturally outwards while sitting as your pelvis tilts up in the front- a flattening of the natural back curvature). The seat overcomes that tendency, and can help you develop more healthy sitting habits. It also puts you at an angle where core muscular engagement feels more natural. Our quibble with the seat come in here: some of us have back pain from the opposite problem- we have the more common anterior pelvic tilts (pelvis tilts down in the front, hyper-emphasizing the curve in the low back- your butt sticks out- associated with spinal lordosis). The BackJoy did very little to relieve that pain. In fact, we felt it might increase it.
Basically, in our opinion there's no catch-all fix for back pain, as much as we'd love to stumble upon (or spin upon) that holy grail. The BackJoy, at $40, seems like a great solution for some people. Interesting to note, the product was designed for the founder's father- posterior pelvic tilts are more common in men than women. For the rest of us, who have pelvic tilts the other way, we have yet to find a miracle product to cure the pain. We can, however, participate in our newly minted sport, "Backatcha," employing the Backjoy as bat, mitt and bludgeon.
You must first create an account to leave a comment
buy paper
buy paper
Saw your bit on BackJoy. Its
Saw your bit on BackJoy. Its funny how you guys couldn’t figure out what it was for. Our office had a lot of fun with it too.
Im a software guy. We sit all day, everyday, especially since our deadlines are always yesterday. Right now we have 44 people in our office and every single one of them knows how to complain! I first saw BackJoy last year at Starbucks. There were a group of people who stuck out because they all sat with perfect posture. They looked so out of place since everyone else was slouching and leaning like us normal people. When one of them got up I saw she was sitting on a small black ‘cradle’. All of them were. I asked her what it was, she told me the name so I looked it up when I got back to the office.
The next week I showed up expecting to be at the butt end of the jokes (pun intended!) with my new BackJoy. Everyone snickered, so being the clever guy I am, I made a little ‘contest’ of it in our office to see who has the flattest butt when they sit. I got the idea from the animation I saw when I ordered mine on their website. It showed that the most common problem with sitting is that we slouch because our butt drops back when we sit and flattens against the bottom of the seat we are sitting on since our muscles and our body just cant hold us up for too long when we sit.
I have a question for you. You wrote that you, like the most people tip their back too far forward, so wouldn’t that seem like you are forcing yourself to sit up too straight then? Everyone I know goes the other way and slouches. Our entire office staff sits like the letter C! When everyone sat on the bench, all slumped forward over their body because their butts did roll too far back. But when everyone sat on the curved part of the BackJoy it was amazing to see how much of an immediate difference it made. The flat butt was gone and there was now enough space to even fit your hand under the BackJoy and between the seat. It was so much easier to sit up straight and keep that balanced position than without BackJoy. Even our lead programmers got into the game. It was a fun little break from work. Glad to say I didn’t win the contest (although some beg to differ!)
Believe me, there are a lot of us here with a little extra cushioning, which you think would help give some extra comfort when you sit. NOPE! Some of the guys in the office actually have some pretty bad back pain. Now nearly everyone here uses BackJoy and there has definitely been a noticeable change (that means people stopped complaining so much!!!)
You should really give it a shot. Your butt will love you for it and your back will feel better. It took some time to figure out how to make my body sit the right way, but since I now understand that sitting better means I have to keep my body over my butt, it actually hurts when I slouch now. I guess that in itself is a success story!
So what are the rules for Back-atcha? We could all use some in-office exercise!