075: My Chair

Studio Tour

☕️ By unanimous reader decision we’re continuing the studio tour around The 60 sq-foot spare room in my apartment that is my studio.

In the book born to run, the author describes how running shoes are destroying our feet, which has an effect on the rest of our body including our back. Part of the problem is all the support gradually weakens our feet.

I take the same logic applies to ergonomic chairs.

I started out with a comfortable rotating chair on wheels, when I hurt my back I replaced that with an exercise bench, and more recently this stool.

A stool encourages good active posture and won’t do any of the work of sitting for you.

I spend a lot of the day sitting and a stool provides a firm base to do a few sitting exercises throughout the day. My favorite is “calf push-ups”.

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At the beginning of my practice, I used to injure myself by drawing, I would find pain in my back, upper and lower, and my wrists. Each time I injured myself I looked for the causes and made small tweaks in my posture and equipment. I hardly get injured these days. And a lot of it has got to do with awareness of how I’m using my body and avoiding injury. I also use ice packs after long drawing sessions as prevention. And I have some go-to exercises for strengthening drawing-related muscles. And stretches to relieving pain and muscle knots.

I’m not going to prescribe any here.

I just thought it’s all part of the story of the chair.

Also, a very athletic friend of mine uses a stool like this, and that was probably the inspiration. Thanks friend if you’re reading this!

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Quest:

Is there something your body is telling you that you should be addressing today, either by changing your environment or modifying your activity?