Are Recliners Bad For Your Hips? – Causes and Prevention Explained

If you’ve been spending extensive periods of time in your recliner chair, it’s not highly uncommon to go through some sort of hip pain. This is a huge con against recliners since they’re specifically purchased so people can be comfortable. And, most of the time, these people are the ones who are already suffering from some sort of physical ailment. So, in this situation, it wouldn’t be wrong to wonder, are recliners bad for your hips?

The answer is simple, no. If a piece of furniture is made specifically for comfort, the chances of you feeling pain after sitting in it are close to zero. The main reason why people experience discomfort in their hips after sitting in a recliner for longer periods of time is improper posture. If you’re not sitting in the recliner correctly, it’s very natural to feel pain in your hips.

Your general sitting posture should always have your knees should be in a bent position which causes your hamstring to relax and shorten, and the flexors also shorten to their maximum length.

Whenever you are standing up from your sitting position, the hip extensors, core, glutes, and flexors have maxed their strength maxed up from sitting down for long hours, and they are becoming weaker, and whenever you stand, the weakness feels in the hip region.

Now we know about the pain in the hips, it is time to talk about the reason why a recliner could be bad for your hips. There are certain things that we will discuss here in detail, which are given below.

What Are Some Reasons That Could Lead to a Recliner Being Uncomfortable?

Following are the reason that your hips start pain while using a recliner:

• The recliner isn’t built for your size
• Uncomfortable footrest
• Incorrect sitting angle
• Poor lumbar support

There are reasons that a recliner could be bad for your hips. Recliners on their own won’t ever end up hurting you. However, if you use a recliner incorrectly or the recliner isn’t built for someone like you, experiencing some pain is definitely a possibility. Let’s talk about each reason in detail.

The Recliner Isn’t Built for your Size

If the recliner does not match your size, it may hurt you, and your hips and back as well. The size of the recliner is very important as it also adds comfort to the user and would decide if you may sleep or sit comfortably in the recliner chair.

It’s difficult for some people to change the position in the recliner chair throughout their stay in the chair, which keeps them immobile for a long time. That is a problem that may be serious and could lead to serious hip pain and even more back pain.

Wrong Sitting Angle

The basic point of using a recliner is that you will recline the backrest as wanted and at your convenience. The standard angle for upright chairs would be 90 degrees, and sitting in this position for that long could lead to chronic back and hip pains.

The recliner has the ability to recline at any angle that you want and archive maximum comfort and let you relax, the same as laying on the bed. Many types of research show us that the best position is to sit in a 135 degrees reclined position.

Sitting in this position should remove a lot of pressure from your hips and your back, but many users did not know about their chair angle and their sitting angle, and using a recliner chair in the wrong position is very bad for your back and hips.

Uncomfortable Footrest

One of the strongest selling points of the recliner chair is the footrest. The footrest can be pushed up and out for the user to recline the chair completely and relax in the chair in a comfortable position. However, the footrest can be a problem if it is elevated.

The two major things that every recliner user should know are very important and safe. The footrest should be on the heart’s level whenever you recline the recliner chair. The leg needs to hang and extend slightly from the footrest.

By doing this, the legs share the pressure evenly. This will relieve a lot of pressure on the heels of the wheels and let the backbone spread through the hip bone area.

Poor Lumbar Support

There are only a few parts in a recliner chair, and lumber is one of the important ones. This is very important for the user to use a recliner with good and strong lumbar support.

It is very dangerous for a user to use a recliner with weak lumbar support, which will hurt the backbone and hip area. If you’re buying a cheap recliner, there’s a pretty good chance that the manufacturer cut some costs on the lumbar support.

Proper lumbar support is the primary thing in recliner chairs. Good lumber is a primary to support your back and hips, and when a recliner does not have this, this becomes a very big problem for you and another user of that recliner.

Now, if you need to purchase a recliner with all these functions and features to relieve your hip pain. Then read one of my articles based on the best hip pain recliner, which included all the top-rated recliners that can relieve your hip pain; you can also sleep in them as well.

Conclusion

It was all about the query are recliners bad for your hips? Basically, the recliner is not a bad thing, but this is a very good and comfortable device in which you can relax and maybe sleep.

But when they use wrong, then they become the cause of the hip and back pain problems. It would be best if you accurately used the recliner only because using it in the wrong way could lead you to some big health problems.