6 months later with the Herman Miller Embody - my back hurts dammit 

6 months of giving yourself chronic back pain. Now that's dedication!

Sorry to hear you're experiencing so much back pain. I hope you are able to find a suitable chair one day, but the standing deck hopefully helps a lot in the interim!

I have the HM Aeron and was on the fence about getting this chair, I'm glad I held off.

Hi Prawn, that sucks to hear. I've had mine for almost 8 months now and I love it. Although it is the regular embody office chair. I spend the majority of my life on it and it is great. One thing I do that helps a lot is to make adjustments whenever I feel the need to. The point of this chair is that it can conform to almost anyone's body. Meaning that even if it fits perfectly yesterday, it might not feel as perfect today, and the great thing about the chair is that I can loosen everything and re-adjust it to what feels comfortable for me on the current day. I noticed in the video that you lean backwards a lot with your arms tucked in, which could put a lot of stress on your lower back, tailbone and shoulders. You want to make sure you're sitting upright the majority of the time except when taking a break then you can release the tilt limiter for a full recline. Make sure your waist is dug nicely into the lower-middle part of the chair for better lumbar support then adjust it to your body structure. There are multiple videos on youtube which teach you how to properly adjust the chair, I'll try to link one below and hopefully, it helps you. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iS0MBCrEVBA.html One last thing to add. Regardless of how comfortable I think the chair is, I keep physically active, I do a lot of rolling and stretching (at least once a week) and I don't have a history of back problems. Thank God. But, I hope you find a solution. Cheers!

I feel your pain, I have had the Logitech Embody for over 3 years and I think the logi is even worse than the regular Embody because it of being designed to push you more forward than the the regular I have tried all the top tier chairs including the remastered Aeron, Leap v2, Gesture, and Fern. Out of all the chairs I wish I would have stuck with the fern but my window to return the Embody had passed at that point

I’m glad I decided to go with the aeron

Thank you for your honesty and personal experience. Like you said, chairs are so dependent on each person's wants and needs and is subjective. A solid chair that offers support and is comfortable is huge for us who work in an office and then spend their time in a chair for their hobby as well like most of us who are into computers. What is also just as important, which you touched on a bit, was to utilize a standing desk and getting up to walk around after sitting for X amount of time. Our bodies are not designed to sit for hours at a time even with the most supportive chair out there. On top of that, it is important to have a solid foundation. So having a strong core, having some muscle in your legs and hips and stretching go such a long way for back pain and being comfortable while sitting.

The Haworth Fern has quite an aggressive lumbar support. I have one and I definitely recommend it over the Embody

Thanks for sharing your experience. I noticed in the video you said you have a curve in your spine. Are you saying that's a curve in your spine that should not be there or that it's curving the wrong direction? Maybe a chiropractor can help? I wish you had gone into more detail about the specific adjustments you tried on the chair like whether you tilted the back more backward or forward. I hope find a solution to your back pain.

Dude ur channel is underrrated

Useful experience for me, as I have a similar lifestyle.. and age 🙂 one of my first purchase was a standing desk as that helps your body to at least wakeup from the sitting position. My advice for you is to do some specific exercise which in theory should alleviate your back problems. Like doing a 10 min stretches in the morning directly in bed before you get up (like pulling your knees to your chest, etc) , also you probably need to do some abdominal exercises which help support your upper body, hence your back.

I require a lot of lumbar also. I have the Herman Miller Mirra 2 with the extra lumbar. In my opinion it’s the most aggressive lumbar they offer. It’s amazing! If you are about to try it it may be the one.

Thank you sharing! I got my chair last week and I'm also experiencing issue with it. I had some back issues and I sit a lot during the day (both work and play say 10-12h/day). This makes chair a very important tool for me and that's why I decided to go "all in" and get "the best chair money can buy". I have spent a lot of time reading and watching different reviews before I pulled a trigger on HM Embody. All reviewers were praising it. I guess most reviewers haven't used it long enough (took just 2 evenings for me to figure out that chair is probably not for me) or were just happy to get it for free causing all the praise and hype for the product. I guess good job, HM's marketing department. I was expecting great things from it considering the Embody reputation as well as the price. I really, really, REALLY wanted to like the chair and make it work for me. That's why I decided to spend such a ridiculous amount of money on an office chair. I have adjusted the chair, desk and screen using general ergonomics recommendations as well instructions provided by HM. So far I'm very disappointed by the product and I'm considering returning it. Mind that everyone is different so "your mileage may vary". My biggest complain is actually overall quality of the product. Sure HM has great guarantee but upholstery material doesn't inspire confidence in terms of longevity. That seat depth adjuster is just terrible. The base of the chair is rather wide to begin with. Then you need to have handles on the sides to make this sliding system to work. Not only it makes chair extremely wide but also it's flimsy AF. I sit between a drawer and a tower case. Having such a wide chair really impacts my side-to-side movements. So far i had to move things around to evaluate the chair and just be able to use it. I never sit still and often shake my legs during sitting (especially when being nervous, bored or just listening to some music). This causes sit adjuster to produce A LOT of noise. Even sitting in the room alone with headphones on it's still annoying and audible. Not to mention using it in the office environment or people next to you. Just terrible and totally unacceptable. It might get better with time but I don't have that time due to 14 days return window policy. There is a design flaw with the seat depth adjusting mechanism as well. If you have your feet at 45 degree and then lift them against the chair you can easily disengage the locking mechanism causing the depth of the chair to be reduced. So I need constantly adjust this mechanism. Sure, having an easy way to adjust something is good, but depth of the seat is something that you only set up ONCE. Why can't it just be permanently locked!? This would solve all the issues I have with settings being changed as well as noise produced. One of my main issue is lack of lumbar support. I don't miss nor feel the need for head support in this chair. I know that many people complain about it but HM says it's not needed and I agree with them. But it could be nice ;) My issue is that I don't feel my back being properly supported. The BackFit adjuster is only changing the angle between base of the chair and back part. So when I feel "I need a bit more lumbar support" or "i want to have it a bit lower/higher" there is no way to adjust this. I agree with you where you say that you feel a need to push against the chair to get support as well as after adjusting the BackFit knob you get uncomfortable after a while. This results in pain in my shoulder-blades. One more thing that I discovered has to do with arm support or rather lack of it. First of all, arm support is rather far forward and depth is not adjustable limiting how close you can come to the desk. Also i need all the time be careful no to damage it when i move close to the desk. Second, and it's a big one, arm support is not supportive at all! When you move arm support from side to side you are not only moving it in one dimension. It moves in a sphere like pattern. What that means is that in "normal up" position it's flat and fine. But if you want to have a bit more space and move arm support 1-2 clicks to the side - it becomes tilted. So I you can't use it as support while playing games using keyboard as elbow keeps gliding off the pads. I need to stress extra muscles to keep my elbow in place. I discovered this when playing FPS game and getting huge amount pain in my arm which I never had or experienced before. Tilting back mechanism has only pre-defined stops and you can't lock your seat there. So you need to push back of the seat back all the time to maintain the ange. Also, during the tilt seat base stays completely flat all the time. Many modern chairs have seat base moving along with back rest (maintaining same angle) making it much more comfortable experience. Do I even have to mention the fact that they included some useless wall poster in the package but they didn't bother to include a one small sheet explaining how to adjust and use all the features you have in the chair!? Instead you have a paper with a link you need to follow instead of the actual instructions. Totally unacceptable considering the cost and "ergonomic" status of the chair. So far I still have time to get used the chair and play more with the settings so I will continue doing that. Unfortunately, at the moment this chair is uncomfortable for me and not worth the money I have spent on it. I don't see how I can make chair more comfortable either. Some features are complete deal breaker for me (for example seat adjuster. both how flimsy it is as well as how much noise it produces). For such a premium product there are many rather important features that are lacking.

yep, same here. Bought one 6 months ago, I've never had back pain and with this chair (using it a lot) I start getting some pain in my lower back!

So what's the conclusion exactly of it? would you still recommend it? or have you another alternative model/chair?

Thanks for the video. I was torn about the Aeron and Embody. This video made me decide in my head to try out both of those chairs IRL. If the Aeron turns out to be "equally" as comfortable, I'd go for it over the Embody. I'm sorry to hear about your back problems. I think stretches dedicated to back muscles as a morning routine could help you out in the long term. I myself do a lot of cardio to still be athletic and mobile, but I do think a 5-minute stretch routine could probably bring good results. I wish you all the best

But would you still be in pain if you would use another type of ergonomic chair for the same amount of time?

Given your specific needs I wonder if you would like a chair with an adjustable lumbar support like the Andaseat Kaiser 3 or Secretlab Titan Evo.

I totaly understand you . I suffered from herniated disk in my neck in 2019 and I just couldnt sleep , could sit , couldnt game counldnt do anything . Eventually after a lot of time and a lot of anti-inflammatories it went away , but I still feel some pain from time to time . In your case I wonder if it was possible to try the chair before buying it? Well I hope you try and find a better solution , let us know anyway . But if the pain consists then probably you should get advice form your doctor and perhaps schedule a M.R.I. Best of lack

mr Prawn, i think youn should trademark your opening line :D I LOVE IT!!!

Please consider the steelcase series 2 or Haworth fern.

One observation I noticed is the position of the Rodecaster being in front of you and under the monitor. It's possible the action of reaching for the buttons could be exacerbating/causing the lower back pain. The reason I noticed this is I do a similar action that you do at 2:55 of reaching forward, except it is for changing settings on my Neo G7 monitor, which is very hard to press without turning to extend your arm vs. extending your back. Anyway, to address this, I'm using an "ergonomic seat cushion" that forces you to sit up in addition to a pillow behind me. The shape is similar to that of the "Belmint Orthopedic Seat cushion (look it up). Then I decrease the back right nob all the way down accordingly until it's comfy (the one that adjusts to your back).

The prongs in the back dug into my back and hurt me. There was 4 specific prongs I almost think it would be worth cutting them off. I had to return the chair due to them

Have you tried using a kneeling chair before ? if not maybe pick one up, you can get quite cheap versions and use that as your work or gaming chair then use something else for the other. Hope things improve for you 👊

While i do agree with you that it can cause pain sitting on embody, my experience is that one have not learned to sit properly on Embody .. i was not happy with it when i got it ... felt painful, but then watched Herman Miller guide on how to use and sit in this chair and changed how i sit and use the chair. Never had a single pain in this chair since. In fact love it to bits ! Also i have noticed that you slouch when you sit. You should push your back to the back of the chair. All the way.

You should try the aeron, the non-gaming edition. I tried both embody and aeron and preferred the aeron much more. I have severe lower back pain too.

I'm sorry to hear that The chair is still giving you back pain. I know you said that the chair might not be the cause, however it's still unfortunate. I'm glad that you understand that there are a lot of caveats about your situation and that you sit in the chair basically all day. I only sit in my chair a few hours a day every night so probably around 4 to 5 hours a day 7 days a week. So I still think I'm going to purchase the Herman Miller chair I guess we'll see how it goes

When I tried the embody in the store for an hour I loved it. Still loved it when it arrived until I tried reclining to game. Then I quite quickly found that the back became quite hard for me and hurt me and that the seat cut off the blood supply to my legs. The latter problem has disappeared after six months, but I'm still trying to get used to the hard back. I've had a blanket over the chair since after about a month which helps a lot (but detracts a lot from the key selling point of style). I find that the upright position is pretty comfortable and I now use it with the backrest almost fully tightened, whereas when I got it I only felt comfortable in the most relaxed position. I think I agree with the lady in the shop who told me after hearing of my issues that the chair is a tool. I think it is helping to improve my bad posture (there's a work bus that has a pronounced curve in the seat back that I find horrible to ride in but no one else complains about) so I'm happy enough persevering with it rather than finding a chair that accommodates my bad habits, like slouching. I actually just bought the headrest for it from Atlas so I'm interested to see if that further helps me become more comfortable especially when reclined. All in all if you're considering spending this much on a chair I strongly suggest using one for several weeks before buying, as, while I think this chair will help me in the long run, I could perhaps have an easier time with a different ergonomic chair like a fern. An extended trial wasn't an option in my region but I have learned my lesson and next time around would probably try to buy second hand or refurbished at a big discount to ensure I was buying the right chair for me. Meanwhile, having spent the best part of $2000 on this chair now, I'm gonna try to get my money's worth!

I would recommend Kab seating Director. You wont be dissapointed helped me with my back problems.

I’m a little late to this video but I agree with your takeaway on the Embody. I also have back issues that require proper lumbar support. I’ve tried or bought all of the flagship chairs from Haworth, HM AND Steelcase in pursuit of some sort of relief and the only two that managed to help were the Mirra 2 and Steelcase Leap. Best of luck with your future chairs!

So I have a steelcase leap. I really enjoy it . Chairs are personal experience unfortunately

I was in the same boat! I watched your videos a lot when deciding to get this chair. I also spend an inordinate amount of time in my chair (easily 14+ hours per day between work, fun, hobbies, and other things), so it felt like a good investment; very expensive, but if it worked, it worked! But when I got it, it was just not comfortable. Not $2000 comfortable. The back felt felt great, but something about the seat was deeply uncomfortable. Because of that, I could never really get into a position that was comfortable for more than 30 minutes. I'm the sort of person who switches positions in my chair a lot, and even that didn't seem to help. I'm not exactly sure what was wrong with it either, which is the hard part to describe. It was just "a little bit firm," which everyone says is supposed to be a good thing, but it definitely wasn't for me. It was definitely a really nice chair, and I'd still recommend it if you had lots of money. But for my needs, it definitely didn't work out, and I got lucky I determined that fast enough to send it back.

im literally looking into this char due to my back pain, thank you for making this informational review, trying to look as much into everything as i can before i spend money on such an expensive chair, thanks a lot for putting this out for sure! you're a G. One thought I've got is have you seen the headrest that's come out for it? maybe look into that for head/neck support aswell

If you need good back support and is mainly about the ergonomics, the aeron might be best. I have the chair and it absolutely helps with back pain. Only problem is that I can't sit however I want. It will remind you and force you to sit proper. That's probably the biggest downside.

It is the chair i got it also, i felt my back had has this "blow out" feelings, so i did a 5 hour car ride to my brother. Slept in his bad gust bed, 2 mights i was away from my chair and my back pain was gone. Came home today spent a few hour on and of, my strange inflammation pain is back. I hope you found and better alternative.

My awkward, but cheap solution to back pain while gaming was to use an actual car chair (an old Mercedes one, no less lol) and improvise a gaming set-up around that.

Do let us know what you settle on. I spend the same amount of time in the chair as you do (which is to say: too much) and I'd love to find a chair that helps with back pain but also doesn't feel like you've got a big steel rod pushing you upright at all times. Not sure it's even possible to be honest to have comfort instead of perfect posture but not cause yourself back pain. Maybe not? You'd think that there would be some company out there that could develop a reclining chair design that kept your spine in alignment while leaning back for long periods of time but I guess that's just not possible or cost efficient? Hell I've even looked into medical massage chairs to see if they would be a good option but they're so expensive ($10,000) that I can't justify the purchase, even if I do sit in it 12 hours a day.

I feel your frustration, we are on the same page. Herman Miller getting away with all these scams. Pure marketing to take your money, if the Aeron was “the best chair of the world” why they invented the Embody? Btw I’ve tried the Embody and was horrible, then I went with the Aeron and returned it after two days due to the back pain. They even took off the free returns because people are returning too much. Good luck

Chairs are such an odd thing, the embody is generally considered the king of chairs but there are still plenty of people that don’t like them so it’s a very confusing situation buying a chair, I’ve ordered an embody but will return it within the 14days if I can’t get on with it, they charge you £49 for return delivery tho, but better then keeping it if I don’t get on with it. I originally bought the Secret labs Titan Evo 22 and found it flat and unsupportive with a largely non functional lumbar system, sold that at a loss, then bought a Razer Iskur which despite adjusting it appropriately actually caused me to develop lower back pain and now I’m waiting for the embody tomorrow…

So, I have had my Herman Miller Embody for just about a year and a 1/2 now, and it's the only chair that does not give me back pain, after trying a slew of different chairs. From 3 work from home days a week to long editing sessions ( I also am a tech channel, that's similar to yours ), this chair has been the best thing I have ever bought. I am over-weight and have a natural slouch to my posture, and even then, the chair alleviates any pain I'd normally get over a long sitting session. From watching some of your B-roll, it seems like your back tension is set to loose. If set too loose, the back doesn't give that support it should. For me, I set it just tight enough so it's slightly pushing my body forward when I try to lean back. But like you said, everyone's chair needs are different so maybe it's just not for you. I hope you are seeing a chiropractor as well, which may help with some of that sitting pain over long periods. But this does bring up the question of, if an Embody doesn't do it for you, what will?! Maybe an Aeron or Steelcase may be your best bet. Either way, great video and review.

Did you try reclining the chair for long periods instead of sitting upright which causes very severe pain?

I feel like a lot of chair 'fans' tend to forget or discount how every person's back is a little bit unique and people have different setups and use cases. There's no chair in the world that can accommodate the needs and preferences of every single person. Ultimately chairs, like shoes, are best tried on in person. I hope you'll be able to find one that works for you eventually :/

Man so sorry and feel your pain! I'm 52 and do Construction with 2 disk that give me lots of probs. If I stay active most of the time I'm good till I sneeze or sleep wrong and it pinches a nerve. I can't sit long or stay in one position long so when I have a weekend off after 2 days of sitting and laying around I start hurting the longer it goes so I built 2 gaming rigs, one for my desk and another beside my bed so I can play games a while at the desk and switch it up to the one beside my bed for a while which helps me a lot. GL it sux bad I know and only gets worse

Great honest video, would you consider selling the chair?

Steelcase gesture may be your next pick it solve my back problem just for me i happy with it

I keep finding you vids ! I wanna new headset you have a video, I need a new table, you have a video, monitor ,mice,keybord and now, a chair. Even when i was building my pc, you had videos on the same case. with the same rgb fans. You and me sir, have alot in common =) thanks for doing what you are doing !

You should probably get a ball chair or a drafting stool

sounds like u have back pain problem in general speaking. it doesnt sound like its from any chair problem from any chair. i think u should sit less since u said u sit like around 10 to 12 hrs a day...

I mean a chair isnt going to fix your bad back problems if you already had them to begin with

I would buy this just cuz of the looks. But if you're buying this cuz you have back pain, just go to the gym and do some squats and deadlifts. That of course is applicable to the average person who doesn't have any structural / congenital issues with their spine.

I sit in this chair 40+ hours a week. No back pain at all. You must be getting old bro. See a doctor.

That back seems too small...for $2k

First off buying a chair for that much with NO high back and no head rest! Is Red flags!... Smh. Absolutely not!