Varier Variable™ Balans® Monochrome Series

The NEW Varier Variable™ Balans® Monochrome series features five fresh new colors for an even more modern kneeling chair. This series is now available to celebrate 40 years of beautiful design, with an engraved signature from Peter Opsvik. Designed by Peter Opsvik in 1979, the Variable Balans is the original kneeling chair. A Varier classic, the Variable Balans kneeling chair gently tilts the pelvis forward and encourages a natural, dynamic, and upright spine. The muscles in your abdomen and back will engage to keep the spine upright and your body balanced, which further strengthens core muscles and prevents back and shoulder tension. The angle between the upper and lower body increases, which greatly improves your circulation. As the body moves from an active to a relaxed posture, the flexible runners respond with a gentle rocking pendular motion. After sitting in this modern kneeling chair for a few days, you may not want to go back to your old way of sitting.

• Designed in Norway. Made in Europe. Stocked in the U.S.
• High-quality HR polyurethane foam seat and knee pads
• Modern kneeling chairs with high-quality laminated ash frames in 5 new colors!
• All wood is from highly sustainable forests
• Felt floor protection strips help prevent hard floor damage and protect runners
• Optional distance blocks for users with frames 5'1" and under (reduces space between the knee pads and seat)
• Active sitting improves your circulation and posture
• Simple and easy assemble
• 240 lb. user weight limit
• This modern kneeling chair includes FREE Soft Tape to protect the runners, should you use it on a hard floor 

Fabrics: Monochrome is upholstered in a knitted textile made from 100% recycled polyester, obtained entirely from post-consumer plastic waste. The textile is made in Italy and is OEKO-tex certified.

Colors in Ochre, Stone, Glacier, NEW Colors: Poppy, Forest, Plum

Comment: On the fence about buying a Varier chair? We encourage any hesitant customer by telling them this. Try it out. If you don't like it take it apart and return it to us. It's a slim line box that costs little to ship so returns are not costly. We only ask that while you are testing it out, keep it on a carpeted surface so that the bottom runners are not scratched. We take very few of these back and the retention rate is close to 99% which speaks volumes for how happy our customers are with the Variable. We think you might enjoy one as well. It's a high quality product made in Norway but stocked here in the USA. OfficeChairs USA is an authorized Varier retailer.

Edward “Coach Eddie” Bergersen is a personal trainer and movement therapist based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Movement is life, and to live is to move. As a species, we have become so successful at surviving that we created environments where there is no real need to move. The chair is our new friend, and we go from A to B using machines. Sounds good right? Well, not really. The problem is that our DNA has not, over the course of thousands of years, had a chance to adapt to our modern, sedentary lives. Our physiology craves movement. Simply take one look at the statistics regarding low back, neck, and shoulder pain, and you will see that the cost to society is staggering, and rising rapidly. Sitting has become the new smoking. Gluing our butts to traditional chairs leads to a whole host of physiological problems that include decreased muscular activation in the legs, lowered insulin sensitivity, increased risk of back prolapse due to the stretching of the posterior spinal discs, and disturbed breathing patterns, to name but a few.

"The origin and ultimate reason for the brain's existence is not to help us think or feel or create art but to control the movement of the body" - Daniel Wolpert

What we need is movement, and I'm not talking about the frantic Weekend Warrior-ism currently in vogue. No, what we need is a middle ground. Too-little movement leads to tissue stagnancy; muscles shrink and become reflexively tight creating pseudo-stability. Holding bad positions statically for long periods, like sitting hunched over a desk, lead to low-level chronic shear loads across tissues. This creates inflammation and muscle pain; Both of which, you guessed it, aren't awesome. Too-much movement of a very high intensity could potentially damage structures, such as when you break a bone or tear a tendon. Clearly, the path to health is somewhere between the two.

"Motion is lotion"  - A wise man somewhere

The traditional method of tackling this problem has been to either encourage a better posture through improved ergonomics, or to simply get people moving more. The idea behind improving seated posture is to place your joints in a position where they are biomechanically strongest against the pull of gravity, thus lowering the net forces impacting the spine, and hopefully reduce the chance of pain occurring. While optimizing posture is critical, what is even more important is avoiding stagnancy.

 “There is no optimal position you can hold forever. It is simply not possible. A good posture will allow you to sit longer without pain, but it will never trump the benefits of moderate, low intensity movement. This is where Varier marries the best of both worlds, with chairs that not only seek to optimize the user's posture, but that continuously encourage movement throughout the day”. -Coach Eddie

Simply using the Varier chairs leads to whole host of benefits over normal chairs, and your joints will begin to feel a lot better.