Why the Weeks Rocking Chair is so Comfortable

Weeks Rockers are comfortable rocking chairs because they are carefully designed to be.  (Please see Designing the Weeks Rocking Chair to read a description of the design process.)  This page describes the results:  the harmony of body and chair.

I love it when people, skeptical or unsuspecting, sit in one of my rocking chairs and break into a smile.  This reaction is universal — followed by such statements of pleasure and amazement as:

"How can a wooden chair be so comfortable?"

When you sit in a Weeks Rocker, each part of your body is in a natural position and relationship to each other part, and there are no painful or annoying points of pressure.

If a chair holds your bones in an unnatural position, some muscles must tense in compensation.  For example, if the angle between the chair back and the seat is incorrect, you have to hold your head too far forward or backward, or scrunch your shoulders, or grip with your feet to attempt to find poise, balance, and stability.  But the Weeks Rocking Chair is configured so that you will be poised, balanced, and stable without effort.

In most wooden chairs you hurt in places after a time because your flesh is compressed between bone and wood.  For example, you feel "hot spots" when sitting on a flat or poorly contoured seat, because your hip bones are pinching your cheeks.  But if the wood seat is accurately curved and contoured so that it is deepest where your bones are nearest your skin, then your weight is distributed widely over your flesh . . . and you provide your own padding.

"I thought I might need a cushion, but no matter how long I sit, it's still comfortable."

After sitting a few moments, most people comment on the lumbar support.  I discovered the curve for the back splats (funny word for the four vertical back supports) by trial and error.  My natural stubborn persistence was here a benefit, as there were many trials and much error.  The splats do not act alone to relax the back.  The curve of the crest rail (headrest) is also critical, as it forms the four splats into the requisite enfoldment of your back.  Also, the deepest part of the scoop in the chair seat both relieves the pressure on your hipbones and locates them so that slumping is difficult and you are held against the lumbar support of the back splats.  And, your two large back muscles run up the two center splats . . . again, you provide your own padding.

"Softest thing I ever sat in, to be so hard."

Our rocking chair is balanced.  Very little energy is required to start or keep it moving.  The chair reaches its back and forward limits within your range of poise and equilibrium.  You don't feel like you might go on over backward or be pitched out forward.  The rocker comes to rest at an angle of repose — your muscles are relaxed and at ease providing peace, tranquility, and a sense of well being.

". . . the last three days, I have fallen asleep sitting bolt upright in your chair."

"I just melt into this chair" This drawing illustrates what I meant in paragraph four above, "the wood is curved and contoured to fit the body."

These photos illustrate the second part of the statement in paragraph four above, "positioned to accurately hold it [your body] in proper relation to itself."  The pitch of the rocker arm and the relation of the arm to seat that you see in the photographs, and feel in the chair, give you a grip and balance and help to settle you back into the enfolding chair.  The arms on most rockers are too low at the front.  This seems subtle or counterintuitive until you try it.  I have an accurate analogy:  If you have your hands too low when rocking a chair, it is like having your weight on your front foot when swinging a baseball bat — poor mechanics.

"But how can a rocking chair fit everyone?"

It can't.  But I contend that the Weeks Rocking Chair fits more people than any other rocking chair and I will risk the cost of shipping and the associated trouble to stand behind that contention.

A common concern is the height of the seat from the floor.  The taller you are the further back the Weeks Rocker comes to rest (height, weight, and center of gravity rule), so that the front edge of the seat is further from the floor — self adjusting for shin bones.  Also, there is no obstruction under the seat, so you can tuck your legs under and rock on your toes or extend your feet out and rock on your heels.

While a person 6'-3" tall towers over a person 5'-0" tall, the differences are not so great for the particular dimensions used to generate the chair parts.  For example, for the tall and the short person, the difference from the bottom of the hipbone, when sitting, to the top of the lumbar vertebrae is about 2".  I found a curve for the back splats that splits this difference, so to speak.  For either person, the splat curve changes direction about an inch from the absolute perfect point, relative to them.  But this inch is well within the ability of the spine to conform and muscle to pad.  Humans are not so different for the many other dimensions and relationships.  Both people sit in comfort and call it perfect.

"I am amazed with the way the chair fits both me and my husband perfectly."

"It's comfortable for both me and my husband — I'm 5'-9" and he is 6'-3" . . . "

"Everyone who sits in it says — it just fits.  Interesting because short or tall, thin or wide, they all say that."

Brian and Debbie illustrate this phenomenon well.  To do so they graciously let me photograph them in their home.  Debbie is 5'5".  Brian is 6'3".  They both call it perfect.

There are limits.  People 6'-4" or so and above do not always use the word "perfect".  I do have happy, taller patrons, but I hear from some of them that they would prefer that the seat was higher from the floor and that the headrest was higher from the seat.  Also, for some tall people with long torsos, the chair backlegs are not high enough off the seat where they join the arms.  Admittedly then, for the very tall, and wide, there are compromises.  Some day I will design a Weeks Rocker Big.

But Mark and Julia love their rocker and spend lots of time in it.  Mark is 6'-5".  Julia is 2'-8".

I believe that for most people the Weeks Rocking Chair is the most comfortable rocking chair ever made.  I believe this because we have delivered over 1790 rocking chairs to people in 49 states and 7 foreign countries, guaranteeing the chairs to be comfortable.  Only three have been returned.