Read the expert review of the Aeris Swopper active dynamic seating element (ADS)* here.
Dr. Bernd Reinhard is an orthopaedic surgeon, sports physician, spa doctor and chiropractor in Bad Aibling and is chairman of the Bundesverband der Deutschen Rückenschulen (BdR) e.V. (Federal Association of German Back Schools).
The active-dynamic sitting element (ADS) is used for the prevention and therapy of back pain. Its task is to sit in an "active-dynamic" way, thereby bringing more movement to the back and the rest of the body in everyday office life. The office furniture industry, which propagates dynamic sitting, essentially understands this to mean the mobility of the backrest, which dynamically follows the back. This "dynamic" is not sufficient for the healthy maintenance of the spine, because intervertebral discs and vertebral joints, ligaments and muscles, and also the nervous system, require constant and varied strain for their existence. The change from "rigid" sitting to "dynamic" sitting is achieved by the fact that the ADS: is oscillating in the vertical and unstable in the horizontal.
With active-dynamic sitting, sitting on a ball becomes practically comprehensible and realisable. Through these mobile properties of the seating device, the following effect is continuously achieved from a medical point of view:
1. the intervertebral discs (mostly 23!) are trained by vertical loading and unloading, sitting in the body plumb with unstable muscular balance of the pelvis guarantees the physiological spinal shape, the double-S-shape. In this double-S-shape, the intervertebral discs are loaded over a wide area with migrating pressure loads and not unilaterally, as is the case when sitting with a rounded back, for example.
2. the back muscles will be able to continuously tense and relax when sitting on the ADS ("Aeris Swopper"). This has the advantage that dynamically working muscles tire less quickly, are better supplied with blood and are better purified. In contrast, static sitting - even if in an upright position - causes premature fatigue of the postural muscles. The nervous control system is also kept "alive" in this way, because when sitting with little movement, the neuromuscular reflex activities dry up.
Sitting on the ADS ("Aeris Swopper") can only be beneficial for the entire musculoskeletal system, because it not only trains the spine itself with its holding, supporting and moving structures, but the joints, hip joints, knee joints, ankle joints at the same time at least have the possibility to move. Movement is the natural maintenance stimulus for the joints! It is to be expected that the untrained user, when sitting without a backrest, will initially feel the strain and stress on his own muscles, but that after a certain time a training effect will set in. It is advisable to "get used to" the chair with a one to two hour exercise phase. The period of use should then be extended to several hours of sitting in the following 4 to 6 weeks.
The active-dynamic seating element ("Aeris Swopper") is a contribution to the realization of office dynamics "people and office in motion" and promises to make a considerable contribution to back health in the office.
* ADS (Active Dynamic Seat Element) was the working title of the "Aeris Swopper" in the development phase.
