Picked by the body and the pain
Trusted picks made on the numbers that actually matter - seat height, seat depth, lumbar range - and matched to your body, not to a brand.
Top picks
Each of these is the top pick from a roundup, with a link to the page where it won and a direct link to the retailer. Every specification we quote for them comes from the manufacturer's published figures.
We earn a commission if you buy through our links. It does not change your price, and it does not change our ranking. We do not publish prices, because we do not run a live price feed — every button opens the current price on the retailer's own page. Full disclosure.
Best for Lower Back Pain
A height-adjustable lumbar with a separate firmness dial, which is the single most useful control on this list if your pain has a specific location.
Top pick: Steelcase Leap v2
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Best for Sciatica
A budget chair that actually adjusts seat depth, which matters more than any other control if the seat edge is cutting into your thighs.
Top pick: Sihoo Doro C300
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Best for Disc Pain
A height-adjustable lumbar with a separate firmness dial, which is the single most useful control on this list if your pain has a specific location.
Top pick: Steelcase Leap v2
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Best for Tailbone Pain
The U-shaped cutout takes the tailbone off the seat entirely, which is the whole mechanism and the only thing it does.
Top pick: ComfiLife Premium Comfort Seat Cushion
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Best for Hip Pain
A saddle seat you can sit on forwards, backwards or perched, which is the only chair here designed to be sat in more than one way.
Top pick: HÅG Capisco 8106
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Best for Neck Pain
A height-adjustable lumbar with a separate firmness dial, which is the single most useful control on this list if your pain has a specific location.
Top pick: Steelcase Leap v2
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Best for Short Sitters
The only mainstream chair sold in three shell sizes, which is why it fits the extremes of the height range that one-size chairs miss.
Top pick: Herman Miller Aeron
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Best for Tall Sitters
The only mainstream chair sold in three shell sizes, which is why it fits the extremes of the height range that one-size chairs miss.
Top pick: Herman Miller Aeron
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Best for Big and Tall
A 450-pound rating and a 23-inch seat, which is the combination most chairs sold as big-and-tall quietly fail to provide.
Top pick: HON Ignition 2.0 Big and Tall
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Start where your problem is
10 pages
Six conditions, six different answers. Pain that starts at the belt line needs a different chair from pain that runs down one leg, and almost nobody sells it that way.
Top pick: Steelcase Leap v2
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8 pages
Most chairs are built for a 5-foot-9 sitter. If you are not one, the chair is the reason your feet dangle, your thighs go numb, or the backrest stops halfway up your spine.
Top pick: Herman Miller Aeron
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6 pages
A chair that is fine for two hours and punishing at eight is not a comfort problem. It is a pressure problem, and it has specific causes you can shop for.
Top pick: Steelcase Leap v2
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6 pages
Lumbar support is the most advertised feature in this category and the least specified. Here is what the word covers, and how to tell which version you are being sold.
Top pick: Steelcase Leap v2
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6 pages
A kneeling chair is not a better office chair. It is a different posture, useful for part of a day and punishing for all of it, and the difference matters.
Top pick: Varier Variable Balans
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6 pages
Each price band buys a specific set of adjustments and gives up another specific set. Knowing which is which is most of the decision.
Top pick: Sihoo M57
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Read these first
The industry standard minimum seat height is 17 inches. Published anthropometric data puts adult popliteal height - the measurement that decides seat height - between 15.0 and 19.9 inches across the 5th to 95th percentile. Work out where you fall and a large part of the shortlist disappears in five minutes. We show the arithmetic and cite the source, so you can check us rather than trust us.
Number one
A lookup table from your standing height to the seat height a chair must reach, with the arithmetic shown and the source cited.
Number two
Why the front edge digs into the back of your knees, and the maximum pan length your legs can actually use.
How this site works
Each specification we publish links to the manufacturer's own figures. Where a maker does not publish something, we leave the gap visible rather than estimating it.
No lab, no six-week trials, no invented first-hand experience. We read spec sheets carefully and say so. That is a smaller claim than the competition makes and it is the true one.
A chair that suits one body is a bad purchase for another. Every pick on this site names the people who should buy something else.
We do not run a live price feed, so rather than print a number that might be a month out of date, every button opens the current price on the retailer's page.
The full version, including what we will not claim: how we pick.
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Spine & Seat is reader-funded. We are a participant in the Amazon Associates program and earn a commission on qualifying purchases made through our links. It does not change your price, and it does not change our ranking - the order of the picks is decided on published fit specifications, and several pages recommend a twenty-dollar cushion over a chair because that is the honest answer.
Read the full affiliate disclosure and our editorial policy.