If you’re planning to buy an office chair and considering whether to buy the chair with or without armrests, you have come to the right place. Usually, office chairs are equipped with arms and for good reasons. Armrests are needed to provide the much-needed support for your hands when your fingers rest on the keyboard. If your desk isn’t big enough to allow you to keep your hands comfortable while your fingers rest on the keyboard, you will start developing pain in your forearms.

If you don’t take steps to contain the pain, it can quickly develop into a more debilitating and permanent condition. The armrests on an office chair offer support and help in relieving tension from the shoulder and neck area. The armrests are also designed to help the user get in and out of the chair easily.

A common myth prevalent about armless chairs is that they have a smaller footprint. That’s not true as the footprint of a chair is determined by the width of the base. The base is usually wide enough to provide necessary stability to the chair.

However, it does not mean that an office chair without arms does not have its advantages. It does have its advantages but the best office chairs without arms are designed to encourage people to maintain a good posture. These chairs are not necessarily comfortable and most people tend to maintain the wrong posture even when sitting on armless chairs.

One of the arguments put forth by advocates of armless office chairs is that armrests hinder the ability of individuals to maintain good posture. It is true that most office chairs are designed to be comfortable and allow individuals to maintain a comfortable position which is not necessarily ergonomically correct. On the other hand, armless chairs have no support for users and users are forced to sit in an upright position. These advocates suggest that armless chairs help in forcing users to sit upright without the necessary support and it prevents them from getting into that slouched position which usually results in back pain and various other issues.

Poor posture is one of the leading causes of chronic back pain issues as well as other degenerative disc diseases and comfortable office chairs with armrests have probably played a role in these issues. However, armless office chairs are not the solution. In fact, it’s extremely uncomfortable for users to remain sitting on an armless chair without proper support for long periods of time. Keep in mind that most office workers these days are supposed to remain seated in their chairs for hours on end which means they need some support to give rest to their body and proper armrests can help with that.

One of the things you can do when buying an office chair is to buy a chair with an adjustable height of armrests. It will allow you to lower the armrests which should give you a practical experience of an office chair without any arms. When you do not want to maintain a position without the armrests, you can always raise them up to provide the much-needed support and comfort for your arms.

Overall, armless office chairs are definitely a step in the right direction but more often than not, these do more harm than good. Therefore, it is better to buy an office chair with adjustable armrests to get the best of both worlds.