The office chair is one piece of furniture most of us spend most of our time in whether it’s at the office or even at home. Given the amount of time spent on one, it’s probably a good idea to find an office chair that’s both supportive and comfortable to get you through your day.

The Steelcase Leap is one of those ergonomic office chairs.  At first glance, it appears to be your typical office chair, nothing eye catching about it if you compare it to the similarly priced and popular Herman Miller Aeron chairs.  But when you plant yourself in the Leap, you discover how comfortable the chair really is and the many ergonomic features it offers.

Steelcase Leap features

The Leap test unit sent to us from Steelcase was in black leather with an aluminum base.  The chair has all the ergonomic features you can ask for in an office chair, from the comfy seat cushion all the way down to the smooth rolling casters.

Here are a few ergonomic features perfect for any office professionals:

Adjustable arms:
This is a pretty standard feature on all office chairs, but the Leap made it so the arms can telescope in and out, move forward and back, side to side, pivot at an angle and adjusts up and down.  You’ll be sure to find a comfortable position.

Upper back force:
You don’t get the springy, bouncy feeling of other office chairs when you recline.  There’s added pressure that makes for a smooth recline. The adjustments found in the Leap lets you customize the right amount of reclining support.

Natural Glide System:
What’s great with this feature is when you recline, the seat moves along forward, easy on your spine and your buttocks for the duration of your workday.

Adjustable seat depth:
Whatever your body size, you can adjust the seat to accommodate your body and still be comfortable.

Lower back firmness:
Any time you spend a good portion of your day at a chair, your lower back will tell you that it needs some support.  This feature allows you to adjust the firmness to keep your lower back feeling good by maintaining that natural curve.

Leap pictures

For the past couple months testing this chair, I’ve been literally glued to it because it’s that comfortable.  I actually found myself shifting less while testing the chair and my posture has improved ever so slightly.  While the chair offers a lot and I found all of their features useful, I didn’t like a couple minor things with the chair, all related to the lumbar support. I thought they could have extended the firmness range to allow for an even firmer support to the lower back. Another thing was the levers for the adjustable lumbar height, the sliding action was not as smooth as it can be and at times, I was able to set the lumbar support unevenly. Also, I thought the (build quality of) levers felt a bit out of place with the rest of the adjustment levers/handles.

For office professionals who are looking for a luxurious ergonomic office chair, this is one of them. All the features and benefits mentioned does not come without a price tag.  This particular chair we tested is priced at USD$1649 from Steelcase online store.  Steelcase does offer other models with different fabrics and finish that start at USD $849, also from their online store.

Prices aside for a moment and think about where you spend most of your day in the office, it’s safe to say that most would agree it’s at a desk, in a chair (bet you’re sitting on one right now, reading Lifehack).  If you are looking to make improvements at the office, you might want to consider adding a good ergonomic office chair.  It could be good for your body as well as the work you produce.

Steelcase also offers a good animation to help with illustrating how all these ergonomic features would function if you are unable to test it in person.