I’m about to look like Dwight from the US version of The Office on his Fitness Orb:
[Play a clip from the Office]
Ignoring the funny scene for a second, using an exercise ball as an office chair was a big thing back in the 2000s to early 2010s. It appeared on TV from the Office and was shown through various Youtube videos. It looks like that trend was overtaken by the treadmill desk in the mid to late 2010s. Now in the 2020s, it’s just working from home to avoid getting sick. Oh, these silly little trends. That brings me to this video and the main question I have. Does using a yoga ball as an office chair actually have any benefits at all. Does using a Yoga ball as an office chair help strengthen your core or help your back? Let’s find out when I use a yoga ball for thirty days instead of a chair.
[Intro]
First, I want to give some background on why I picked this challenge. As my frequent viewers will note, I have two constant complaints about my body throughout my videos: my lack of ab strength and how bad my back hurts. My career is as a Software Developer, and I also do this YouTube thing in my free time. That means I am in an office chair for around ten to twelve hours daily. As you can see from the video behind me, my posture on a computer chair is not great. I recorded myself for only fifteen minutes, so this isn’t even close to my worst posture throughout the day.
To fix these problems, I needed to get rid of the chair and figure something else out. That’s when I remembered this trend and the clip from the Office. I remember reading back then that swapping a desk chair for a yoga ball can help engage your core and strengthen your back. In fact, on most yoga ball listing pages, you see pictures of people using them as desk chairs. A company would never lie to old Jack, so it must be true. To prove it, I’ll buy that item and use the yoga ball as a chair to fix my back and engage my core muscles.
To begin, I headed to amazon and bought this Yoga ball for about twenty-five dollars. I got both the thirty and thirty-four-inch sizes as I wasn’t sure what would work for my height and desk size. I’m six foot one or two and around three hundred pounds depending on the day. After trying both, the thirty-four-inch yoga ball was perfect for someone of my size. At first, it was a little high, but my weight at three hundred pounds pushing on the ball lowered it enough. I had no problems with the product or pumping it up, so I recommend it. Just adjust your height and weight to determine the size of the yoga ball.
With that item purchased, I went ahead and created my outline. My plan was to ease into using the yoga ball throughout my day. Starting off with one hour for the first week before ending my last day at five hours. I did this for thirty days, excluding the seventh, thirteen, nineteen, and twenty-fifth. With this outline, my goal is to help eliminate my back pain. With the plan outline, the product purchased, and my back crying for relief, I started out on my Yoga Ball desk journey. Here is my reaction on day 1 after an hour of use.
[Day 1]
That’s right, after day one, my back problems actually increased. Throughout the rest of the thirty days, it actually got worse and worse, with the back pain becoming excruciating towards the end. I did this challenge in August and am recording this in November with normal back pain. With that said, it was definitely the yoga ball hurting my back. Once I switched back to a regular chair, my back was fine, or at least fine. My big thing was the lack of any back support made me lean forward even more than usual after an hour. That and the uneven support area may have caused compression in my lower back.
That feeling I got mimics the science I found while researching this topic. I’ll be focusing on this article from the University of Waterloo, “The Use of Stability Balls in the Workplace of the Standard Office Chair,” by Diane Gregory and Jack Callaghan. A study referenced in the article by Dr. Callaghan on using an Office chair and Yoga ball concluded that “Increased discomfort in both the low back and buttocks region was reported by all individuals while sitting on the ball as compared to the chair.” Further, the study found that after an hour on a yoga ball that there were “no significant differences between the muscle activation patterns while on the ball versus the chair with the exception of the left thoracic erector spinal muscle, which could be attributed to handedness and workplace interaction while sitting on different surfaces.” So, I can sit on a nice comfy foam square and probably get the same workout in that erector muscle. As a side note, I put the article in the description for you all to read.
That evidence and others I don’t have time to go into all say the same thing. Using a Yoga Ball is bad for your back and does little to nothing for your abs. My personal experience is in line with the studies, to give it some credence. That’s right… who needs science when you got the opinion of a twenty-something Youtuber. There is this lie that these Yoga Ball manufacturers use in their advertisements that show people using Yoga balls as office chairs despite the danger it actually causes. I don’t know if it was the manufacturers who created the lie or if it was a hippie consumer, but it is a lie that perpetrates to this day. It is scientifically not true that yoga balls as office chairs are good for you. Again, as someone who has done it for up to five hours a day for thirty goddamn days, I can say that it definitely isn’t true. You can see from my video footage behind me that my posture is worse on a yoga ball than it is on my chair. And I only record the first thirty minutes. My Ass, my Back, and everything else hurt by doing this experiment.
Overall, I can recommend everyone not do this experiment. While it’s nice that I now have a Yoga ball I can exercise thanks to doing this video, the pain I experienced during the challenge is a big demotivator. I must say that I completed the challenge cause I’m stubborn and will finish what I say. Here is my filled-in sheet with how long I was on the yoga ball each day. Yes, I did go over each day, but that was mostly because I was distracted by work. My overall lesson for this video is to keep work and fitness separate. As someone who works overtime constantly, I feel you don’t have time to work out due to work. It sucks and is probably one of the reasons why I am obese. That and my love for sweets. Combining work and fitness is just a disaster waiting to happen. Do yourself a favor and try and keep these things separate and try and make time for fitness on your own time. It’s hard, but it’s something that’s worth it. Also, screw working over fifty hours per week. I need my time back, goddammit.
So guys, thank you so much for watching this video. If you think I suffered enough, then please give me a thumbs up as a reward. If you think I didn’t suffer enough, then leave a challenge for me to do below. I will do any challenge that isn’t illegal if asked, even if it hurts my body. I’m like the Jack Ass guys except not rich or famous. Subscribe to my Youtube channel, where I post a new video every Friday. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at @truejackjenk. Visit my website at jack-jenkins.com. I post when the videos are coming out, and that is pretty much it. Lastly, have an amazing day, everyone! All you guys watching are just amazing.