‘Back pain in the morning? Can't touch your toes?'

Earlier this year I visited the global headquarters and showroom of gaming chair giant Secretlab in Singapore for an early look at the then unannounced Atlas task chair. Most of the trip was focused on the upcoming product, learning about how it was designed and getting some initial hands-on time, but also involved a lengthy chat with the company’s ergonomic advisor, Dr. Lindsey Migliore.

On top of her work with brands like Secretlab, the physician is the founder of GamerDoc, a consultancy firm that helps professional competitive players prevent injuries, and published a first of its kind handbook of esports medicine in 2021. She also delivers lectures on the subject around the world.

I can’t think of anyone better placed to tell you how best to sit in a chair, and she had plenty of useful advice — some of which will likely come as a surprise, even if you already think you have perfect seating position.

Dr. Lindsey Migliore is a leading voice in esports medicine. She founded the consultancy firm GamerDoc and advises major hardware brands like Secretlab and Herman Miller. In 2021 she published a first of its kind handbook of esports medicine.

You could be sitting all wrong

“Ergonomics back in the day used to be a little different. When I started working, it was the 90-90-90 rule. Stiff, upright,” she begins, referring to the popular idea that your hips, knees, and elbows should all be at a 90° when you’re sitting at a desk.

“It started in airspace, and then worked its way into the rest of the world through assembly lines because business people didn’t want their assembly workers to get injured,” she continued. “That’s where the 90-90-90 [rule] and the origin of ergonomics came from.

“Then we started applying it more to office workers, and how we all sat in the early 2000s. That’s when adjustability started blowing up; we got split keyboards, vertical mice, and sit-to-stand desks.”

The advice, she argues, is now out of date and focuses too heavily on maintaining a perfect, still position: “Adjustability is great, it’s essential, but they replaced perfect upright sitting with supported stillness — there’s no movement. There’s all this data from five, 10 years ago about how bad sitting still is for us, and how bad a sedentary lifestyle is for us. It’s just as bad as diabetes.”

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Rather than staying static, she says that it’s vital to keep “activating your muscles” by moving around.

“Back in the day when we were hunter-gatherers, you would eat food, and you’d use that food to kill more food. But now we eat food, and we go to sleep. We eat food, and we watch Netflix for six hours,” she adds with a chuckle.

“Muscles are meant to take load, external force, and respond with tension [...] but when you sit for a long period of time, that prolonged tension causes strain.

“In the short term it’s pain, it’s discomfort, but in the long term the tissue remodels to get used to stillness, to get used to a lack of movement.”

Motion is key

Dr. Migliore says this is supported by plenty of recent research: “What we’re looking at in modern day ergonomics is that you’ve got to get your butts moving. You’ve got to get up; you’ve got to move. We know that movement is good.”

As a result, she recommends chairs that offer dynamic tilt mechanisms and support multiple seating positions, like the Secretlab Atlas.

She also has some more general tips that everyone will be able to apply to their own setups, regardless of their chosen hardware.

“Back pain in the morning? Can’t touch your toes?” she laughs, before suggesting that having your “feet flat on the floor is the number one most important thing” when you’re seated. Footrests can be introduced if you require some added height or want to help stretch your ankles by propping your feet up at more of an angle.

Your knees should also be kept roughly in line with your hips, in the position that you find most comfortable. For chairs with adjustable seat depth, the ideal position is “two to three finger breadths” between the back of your knee and the chair. You should also aim to have your lower back flat against the backrest to reduce the risk of your muscle tissue weakening. Reclining back on your chair for a rest in between intense tasks can be helpful as well, and promotes back movement.

She recommends using a desk with an adjustable height, saying that your elbows should be at a 90-degree angle. “The 90-90-90 rule isn’t dead,” she adds. “We’re just not focused on upright posture all the time.” Your monitor should then be about an arm’s length away from where you’re sitting with the top of it about level with your eyes.

She advises those with ultra-wide displays to ensure that the middle of the screen is used as a “high focus area,” with the sides reserved for less important programs so that you’re not constantly turning your head and risking neck strain. “As long as your head and neck are neutral and looking forward, you’re good,” she says.

If you're looking to upgrade your setup off the back of Dr. Migliore's advice, you can see our recommendations for the best gaming chairs or best office chairs, and best office desks or best standing desks (perhaps even a gaming desk) depending on what you're after.

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Dash is an experienced tech journalist who specializes in video games, electronic entertainment products, and the wider industry that surrounds them. He currently serves as the Gaming Editor at TechRadar, leading our review, preview, feature, and news coverage of the latest and greatest releases.

Before joining the team, he was Contributing Writer at PLAY (formerly Official PlayStation Magazine UK) and has written articles for many of the UK's other biggest gaming magazines including the likes of Edge, PC Gamer, and SFX.

Now, when he's not getting his greasy little mitts on the newest hardware or gaming gadget, he can be found listening to J-pop or feverishly devouring the latest Nintendo Switch otome.