It’s not fun to get on strolling every 15 minutes leaving your desk. Neither is finding even a mere 10-mile drive feeling like mountains breaking loose on your back.
It might sound absurd, but you can have your backpack ready for this roller coaster ride if you aren’t aware of your lumbar health.
Bluff? Well, I’d have thought twice even before joking around back pain; nearly 65 million Americans are suffering from it.
Perhaps you know its significance, thus came out looking for answers about: what is lumbar support and everything in detail about it.
Read along thoroughly, as you mightn’t want to leave behind a fraction of the detail covered in this article.
Lumbar Support and Its Connection to Human Anatomy
Perhaps one of the most underrated physical problems in the USA, back pain makes people bleed silently, spending around $12 billion every year.
Are you already knocked off by this huge amount? Well, it’s an ever-increasing number, with millions of people backing it up with wrong sitting postures at work.
Since it’s more of a medical-related concern, why not use clinical ways to explain it?
Our human backbone is designed as a slight S curve, which best balances the vertebra and joints. The right and regular posture (not the normal one we’re used to) is visible when we stand upright, expanding our chest at best.
In much easier words, the lower part of our spine, just before the sacrum (a shield-type boney structure above your hip), has an inward curve. There’s a natural outward curve just underneath the neck if you move a little upward.
This curve structure preserves a healthy back that pretty well maintains all the disks and nerve balance. The problem occurs when we tend to sit on our desk or seat where not a pinch of required ergonomics can be found.
Either the chair is not ergonomically designed, or we tend to lean or slouch forward while working and driving. In this case, the back resembles a parabolic outward curve that shatters all the ideal posture integrities.
Every action has a reaction, right? The same goes here.
This posture tends to stretch, hurt, and strain our back muscles, discs, vertebrae, and nerves. And over time, we develop backache, which leads to terrible back pain.
Lumbar support puts itself right in the middle of your lower back and backrest and gives you the ideal posture every time you head for any sitting task.
Why Do You Need a Lumbar Support?
Hey! Want to hear an interesting thing?
There’s a trick that automatically helps the reader to steer towards answering their own questions. Don’t believe my words? Try answering the following questions.
- How many hours do you pass sitting on the office chair?
- Care to answer how long do you keep on gaming every time you sit on your chair?
- What amount of your time is spent behind the driving wheel?
If you’ve read the previous medical explanations, the answers to these questions didn’t give you much comfort, right?
Yeah, exactly. We all have this long hour of unhealthy sitting practice where we continuously stress our backs. And some of us might already be facing the consequences and regretting why we haven’t taken action earlier.
To save yourself from this terrible dismay, you need to get proper lumbar support.
How Does a Lumbar Support Work?
In many cases, how it works better entails you what would be its benefits.
Lumbar support gives you the much-needed support to your back while maintaining the required back curve in your sitting positions.
To better understand how it works, you first need to know where to put lumbar support. You put it right behind your hip, where you lean on your chair’s backrest. The ideal position is to bring it on the belt level where the inward curve starts.
But it would be best if you prioritized your comfort while deciding where to put lumbar support on the chair.
Placing it in the right and comfortable position, you can prevent stressing your back muscle to a great extent. In return, you get long hours of stressless sitting comfort without arching your back at all.
Special Note – If you tend to slouch while working or driving, no amount of back support will work for you. You need to stop leaning forward and sit perfectly straight to get the best result.
Be very careful about maintaining the right angle of your hip and thigh. To get the best position, push your bum to the furthest corner of the chair. Then naturally, the lumbar support will assist you with the required curvature.
While sitting straight, make sure your feet are well placed on the floor and your head and neck are in ideal straight alignment. Try standing up, walking a little, and stretching arms and neck at every interval.
Full performance of lumbar support will be in effect only after you follow the mentioned steps precisely.
Types of Lumbar Support
As our need for lumbar support soared high, so were the number of alternatives. You’ll never be out of options while choosing lumbar support.
Regardless of the innumerable alternatives, you can classify the lumbar support in the following categories.
- External Lumbar Support
- Fixed Lumbar Support
- Adjustable Lumbar support
1. External Lumbar Support
One of the oldest and perhaps the most used version of lumbar support across the whole world. Why wouldn’t it be the most used one?
It is –
- Affordable
- Convenient to carry
- Compact in size
- Usable in any place
And whatnot.
You won’t be out of choices either while choosing from this long-range of alternatives, like different variations of mesh and pillow lumbar supports. Just make a good purchase and place it exactly where should lumbar support be on your back, and there you go.
2. Fixed Lumbar Support
To dig a little deep into this segment, you first need to know what is lumbar support in chairs. It’s usually the backrest of the chair that is designed in a way to give you firm back support.
Fixed lumbar supports are ideally fixed with your sitting chairs. It’s usually a default curved backrest or fixed support at the backrest that isn’t adjustable. Nowadays, most office and gaming chairs have fixed lumbar support that comforts the user’s prolonged use.
Although it comes with great benefits, the price is sometimes ridiculously high. That brings forward the question, whether it’s a good financial investment or not.
3. Adjustable Lumbar Support
It’s almost identical to the fixed lumbar support, but companies enable you to adjust it for your better comfort. More and more top-end companies are inventing their newest models of chairs with cutting-edge design of lumbar support.
It definitely feels and sounds super cool to sit on those chairs, but the price set for this adjustable lumbar support will surely hurt your savings.
What Is Lumbar Support in Car?
Like the existing lumbar support definition, lumbar support in cars ensures a proper sitting posture while driving or riding your vehicles.
Interestingly car companies are incorporating lumbar support in the car seat design where you could get options like fixed and adjustable lumbar support. In cases where there’s plain or no required back support, you can head for external lumbar support.
External lumbar support gives you a fair amount of choices where you can shuffle and choose to buy your most suited ones.
When Do You Need Lumbar Support?
It’s common to get puzzled about when exactly do you need to put on or head for lumbar support. Well, if you ask me, I’d say right away.
Lumbar support is mostly recommended when you spend a significant amount of time sitting for your job or gaming.
How is your routine and how do you sit on the chairs definitely hold the essence of the lumbar support needs. But getting lumbar support, regardless of how many hours you sit on chairs, will do no harm at all.
Lumbar Support in Today’s Ergonomic Chairs: How Good Are They?
Surfing on the internet, you’ll never run out of the list of ergonomic chairs. From your favorite influencers to your friends next door, you’ll keep on talking about the special features that ergonomic chairs bring to the table.
But are the chairs good enough to quench your needs? Or these are just fancy terms and features that are blended to expand your eyeballs.
In reality, most of the chairs cross the threshold of decent back support, but concern rises when it’s about optimal back support. When used for a long time, some chairs tend not to serve the right purpose.
So, it won’t be wise to jump on the bandwagon unknowingly. Dig down further, try to go for adjustable lumbar support, which will give superior comfort.
Aside from the backrest, do emphasize proper armrest as well to get the best out of your money.
Benefits of Using Lamber Support: Is It Worth the Cost?
Scrolling down, you probably have a lot of benefits in your mind scattered around. There’s everything there but not much organized, right?
Let’s skim through some of the benefits to emphasize the need for lumbar support further –
- It gives you long and chronic back pain relief
- If you’re suffering from neck and shoulder pain, lumbar support can even offer aid in this segment too
- Improved body balance while sitting for long hours
- Alleviated body posture that doesn’t inflict hardship on your spine
- Added comfort for long-term sitting and working
- Improves blood circulation of lower back muscle
- Relieves you from tragic back aching
- Offers you superior joint support
- Ensures a healthy backbone
How Should I Purchase My Lumbar Support?
Buying anything could be tricky if you don’t have a good idea about the products beforehand. Since it’s about financing your money, why not invest some time in learning what to look for and how to make the purchase.
Here are some tips that might come to your aid.
· Type
There’re different types of lumbar support available on the market. Mesh, pillow, air pumped, etc. The best among these alternatives is the mesh and pillow ones. Air pumped lumbar support tends to lose its pressure over time.
· Circulation of Air
It refers to the proper air breathability of the lumbar support. If it has good air circulation, it won’t increase the temperature in long-term use.
Make sure you check this out while purchasing it. You can opt for mesh lumbar supports to get the best air circulation amidst available alternatives.
· Support
The core feature that lumbar support must inherit is proper back support. It has to be soft yet put a strong resistance, a perfect balance between the extremes. Without these, the lumbar support is of no use.
· Adjustment Options
There must be an option to attach the lumbar support and adjust it vertically with the backrest. To easily identify whether it’s adjustable or not, look if any straps are attached around. Straps are a must; otherwise, you’ll be troubled every time you reposition your lumbar support.
· Design
One of the most ignored things while choosing the lumbar support is its design. You can’t hide what’s on your chair if it doesn’t complement the overall environment.
Everything plays a vital role that is hardly understandable before purchase, from color, design, and style.
So, the recommendation here is to double-check the color, style, and design that will possibly look great on your favorite chair or seat.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need lumbar support?
Yes, it would help if you had lumbar support to maintain a good body posture better while sitting. It’ll serve as firm support that helps us maintain the standard curvature of the back that’s often lacking while sitting on a regular chair. Continuing abnormal sitting posture can severely hurt your back and develop back pain.
Where should the lumbar support be?
Where should the lumbar support be?
The lumbar support should be placed just behind your lower back, slightly above your hips. Sit straight, leaning on the backrest, and there you go. It’ll offer you a standard inward back curve that comforts prolonged sitting activities.
Where to place lumbar support on the chair?
You should place the lumbar support on the backrest, adjusting the height to the upper hip curve level. It has to be somewhere around where you put on the belt for best results. You can further move it up and down for the best comfort for your different activities.
Where should a lumbar pillow be placed?
The lumbar pillow needs to be placed right behind your lower back. In chairs, put it attaching to the backrest. Manually place the pillow in a position that best helps you maintain the inward curve. You can move the pillow in different directions for your best comfort.
What does lumbar support do?
Lumbar support helps you support your lower back where you strain while working or driving. Its main purpose is to help you maintain a healthy body posture, which is completely missing when sitting normally.
Final Words
Back pain is some kind of wound that you’ll forever carry along but can’t show to anybody. The same goes for backache and back muscle strain.
Only a victim knows the story where the climax always brings boundless tears with no gain. No doubt, your concern about what is lumbar support in today’s life is as legitimate as it gets.
Because problems with the back don’t develop in one day, the constant carelessness with your back support is the reason for its terrible impact. So, learning in and out about how to keep it well should be everyone’s top priority. Perhaps proper back support can get you a great time while working for long hours in the office or doing long drives with your friends.
Hi, my name is Alley, and I’m a pharmacist. I have had 10 years of experience in this field, and it has helped me understand the importance of good health. I have published many articles on cost-effective healthcare and its importance. as well as how to stay healthy and places to visit for cost-effective healthcare.