Top 5 best office chairs for tailbone pain

Dear reader, since you are here, I guess you know what it's like to literally work your butt off. Having a tailbone pain could make working and living miserable. I had a bad experience with my tailbone and I think choosing the right office chair could make a significant difference to your well-being. What follows is my list with the best 5 office chairs for coccyx pain. Some of them are specialized to do just that - to relieve the pressure from your tailbone. So let's start!

5. Zenergy Ball Chair

Safco is a company founded in 1966 in New Hope, Minnesota, USA. The company is an office furniture manufacturer and offers ergonomic desks, chairs, tables and much more.

Zenergy Ball Chair is a strange-looking office chair by Safco. The chair has an inflatable 17.5" (44.4 cm) exercise ball with a mesh cover. Its purpose is to encourage sitting correctly. Your spine will love this. The design of the Zenergy Ball Chair will reduce your coccyx pain. This funny-looking chair has 4 sturdy legs with stationary glides.

4. Hara Chair

HaraTech is a German company founded by Manfred Haiberger. The company manufactures office chairs for more than 10 years. HaraTech wanted to invent an office chair which distributes the weight of a human body more effectively and they created a chair with double seat. Later, the company patented the dual seat base.

Hara Chair Nietzsche LB V7 is the latest iteration of the popular Nietzsche office chair by HaraTech. It has a patented double seat which reduces the pressure on your spine and tailbone area. Also, the office chair has a split backrest, leaving your spine with no direct contact to your chair at all.

3. Gaiam Ball Chair

Gaiam is a company founded in 1988 in Louisville, Colorado, USA. It produces yoga, fitness and wellness products. The name of the company, Gaiam (pronounced "GUY-um"), comes from "Gaia" (the name of the Ancient Greek Mother Earth goddess) and "I am". It means "I am the Earth".

Gaiam Classic Ball Chair is one of the most popular products by Gaiam. This ergonomic chair improves your posture and spinal alignment. It consists of a 20.4" (52 cm) balance ball, ball holder, back support bar, 4 caster wheels (the 2 from the back are lockable). Sitting on Gaiam Classic Ball Chair could significantly decrease your tailbone discomfort.

2. Carmichael Throne

Carmichael Throne Company was founded in 2011 in Duluth, Georgia, USA. The founder, Danny Carmichael, used to be a drummer. He experienced a lot of tailbone pain while he was sitting on his drum throne. There wasn't any solution on the market that could help him and Danny Carmichael invented the Carmichael Drum Throne. It has a channel, splitting the seat in two, leaving your spine to float. Later, Dan patented the revolutionary split seat design and started manufacturing drum and office chairs.

The Carmichael CT-B94 Apollo High-Back is one of the most popular office chairs by the Carmichael Throne Company. It has the revolutionary "floating tailbone" feature in the form of a split seat design. Your coccyx won't have a direct contact with the seat of your chair and your tailbone pain will be reduced. Also, the CT-B94 will alleviate the pressure on your back, increasing your comfort even more.

1. Steelcase Leap

Steelcase is a furniture corporation founded in 1912 in Michigan, USA. Today the company has more than 12,000 employees and had $3.4 billion in revenue for 2018. Steelcase is the biggest office furniture manufacturer on the planet.

Steelcase Leap is the most popular ergonomic office chair the company offers. Its specific design makes it the best office chair for tailbone pain on the market. Steelcase Leap will leave your coccyx hanging over the back of the seat. No pressure on your tailbone means you will finally concentrate on your work instead of your pain. There is a special Steelcase Leap Plus office chair for the bigger folks up to 500 lbs (226 kg).

Which are the best types of office chairs for tailbone pain?

The best types of office chairs for coccyx pain are with short seat, a seat with a gap/channel or a coccyx cut-out. You could use kneeling chairs, too, but they should have a coccyx cut-out or should support sitting in a reverse position. Saddle chairs with a double saddle seat are another great option for making your buttocks happier. All of the chairs which support sitting backwards and have a tiltable seat and chest support are also a good candidate for relieving a sore tailbone. Finally, using an exercise ball or a ball chair from time to time could be a great addition to your traditional office chair and will make a noticeable difference in the comfort of your tailbone area.

Office chairs with a foam seat

When we are talking about office chair upholstery and tailbone pain, the best choice you could make is foam. Any other option will be less comfortable. There are three important factors related to foam - thickness, density and firmness.

The thicker the foam is, the more weight it will support. So if you are a bigger person, you should look for a thicker office chair seat.

Foam density refers to how heavy it is compared to its size. Foams with higher density have a higher resistance and durability.

If the foam is soft, you will have a more comfortable seat. If you are a larger person, you should pick a firmer foam with a better compression. This will give you the necessary comfort and it will last longer.

Office chairs with a short seat

Office chairs with shorter seats take the pressure off your coccyx. Such seats leave your coccyx hanging and with no direct contact.

The chair you see on the photos is one of my many chairs and it is known as the "ISO Stacking chair". You could easily find it in Europe. Unfortunately, the office chairs with the same design in the USA are knock-offs and bad replicas. Happily, there are hundreds of chairs with similar design. It is extremely cheap and it is the best "quick fix" for a tailbone pain I have found.

There are, of course, high-quality and highly-adjustable office chairs with such seats.

Office chairs with a channel or coccyx cut-out

Office chairs with a channel/gap/double seat are a very popular solution when it comes to tailbone pain. These specialized chairs aim to eliminate the direct contact with your coccyx. The German HaraTech and the American Carmichael Throne Company manufacture such chairs.

Another feature for those of us with a sensitive butt is the coccyx cut-out. A lot of companies which offer regular office chairs with foam seats could modify them and add coccyx cut-out. Some of the companies could even provide you with an extra layer of foam. Having a coccyx cut-out could greatly reduce the pressure on your spine and tailbone making your working day a positive instead of a negative experience.

Kneeling chairs

Kneeling chairs are built to reduce lower back strain. The slightly tilted design of the seat keeps your spine in alignment while you work. The weight of your body is distributed between your buttocks and shins. Kneeling chairs leave your legs with zero range of motion and are not recommended for prolonged use.

If you have a tailbone pain, you could still use a kneeling chair, but you have to find one with a coccyx cut-out. Fortunately, there are companies like Putnams which manufacture such products.

One very unusual kneeling chair, the Thatsit Balans by Varier, supports sitting in a reverse position.

Sitting backwards in this creative chair really alleviate the pressure on your coccyx. If you plan to use a kneeling chair, use it in conjunction with your regular office chair.

Saddle chairs

Saddle chair is a chair shaped like a saddle you put on a horse. Perhaps it is correct to call them saddle stools. Compared to the chairs, the stools do not have a back or an armrest.

Saddle chairs have a distinguished design - you sit 8"-12" (20 - 30 cm) higher than you would on a regular chair. This increases the angle between the hips and your knees from 90° to 135°. To use saddle chairs you would also need a higher desk.

These chairs improve and correct your posture over time. Saddle chairs significantly decrease back and neck pain. They keep your spine in a natural S-curve. Similar to sitting on a kneeling chair, the riding-like sitting requires you to stabilize yourself by using your core abdominal and leg muscles.

Saddle chairs are primarily used by dentists, surgeons and other medical professionals. Lately, more and more office workers are starting to use them on a regular basis. People with injured or bruised tailbone could use a saddle chair with a divided seat. Salli manufactures high-quality chairs with a split saddle seat.

Another option for the folks with a tailbone pain is to use a saddle chair with a coccyx cut-out by Seers Medical.

Office chairs with reverse position support

Office chairs that you could sit in backwards are pretty interesting. They could help with relieving your tailbone pain, too. Typically these chairs come with a tiltable backrest which is used as a chest support. Also, the chairs have a tiltable seat. This combination reduces the coccyx strain.

RH Alternative Support 4545 is an office chair which allows you to sit "back to front" alleviating the pressure on your tailbone area.

Another amazing office chair is the Hag Capisco by Flokk.

It has a saddle seat and supports sitting forward, backwards and sideways. Hag Capisco truly is one out-of-the-box way to fight with coccyx pain.

Exercise balls and ball chairs

Sitting on an exercise ball or ball chair has one amazing feature - it encourages you to sit correctly - it helps a lot to folks like me who tend to slouch. It does reduce the tailbone strain, too.

The idea behind the sitting on a stability ball is that your core abdominal and leg muscles will have to work to keep your body in balance. Otherwise you will fall, which is, by the way, one of the risks of this type of sitting. When you sit on a yoga ball, you exercise your muscles and even burn calories.

Please keep in mind that sitting on a balance ball for prolonged periods of time is not a good idea and it is not recommended. You should think of the exercise ball as an addition to your office chair, not as a substitute to it.

Which are the worst types of office chairs for coccyx pain?

The worst types of office chairs for tailbone pain are those with hard surface. They will gradually increase your pain and will eventually make it unbearable. You should avoid chairs that feel like sitting on a wooden stool.

Also, you should avoid sitting on chairs with a mesh seat. They are widespread, but there are a lot of issues with the mesh. The cheap office chairs use a hard mesh seat. It lasts long but it is like sitting on a chair made of stone. On a first sight everything seems okay with the high-end office chairs with soft mesh seats. But I wouldn't recommend them to people who have a tailbone discomfort. Why? The soft mesh seat does not distribute your weight evenly because it expands more than a regular foam or a hard mesh. This "hammock effect" causes the majority of the pressure to be placed on your coccyx.

A couple of examples with office chairs you should avoid if you have a coccyx issue are the Herman Miller Aeron and the Ergohuman Chair. These are extremely popular and I would rate them highly on ergonomics, but if you have a tailbone discomfort, you shouldn't use them.

This article was influenced by Jon Miles and his article "Comfortable chairs for cases of coccyx pain".