How to buy

To buy a RidgeBack cushion, please contact either Randpark Ridge Family Chiropractic or me.

Randpark Ridge Family Chiropractic: 011 791 7799

Sue (myself): 084 484 1111 (includes WhatsApp)

The history of the RidgeBack cushion

I developed the Ridgeback cushion in 2015 and 2016. I am a small woman and I was struggling with poor posture while driving my car, which had the typical “bucket” seats found in most small cars today. These seats are better for large people. For a small person, they swallow up your body, moving you further from the steering wheel and providing little support to the spine.

My late partner and I were sharing a car. He was a large man, about 1.86 m tall and weighing 93 kg. These metrics placed him in the 95th percentile for men. My height is 1.49 m and my weight was 48 kg, placing me in the 5th percentile for women. (Menopause has added a few kilograms since then!)

Our metrics were precisely what car manufacturers work with to design vehicles that accommodate a large range of drivers. They must allow for the ergonomic needs of everyone from a petite woman to a large man. We had a natural testing ground for the RidgeBack.

I would place each new prototype in the car, and off we would go for the next couple of weeks, tracking how well it suited both of us as drivers. My first prototype was a heck of a wedge of very hard foam. It made my partner’s life impossible, as it took up so much of the seat. It also made me uncomfortable. My back felt better supported, but it also felt a little bruised.

I quickly softened both my approach and the foam I used. Over the next few months I made other important tweaks, adding mild support for the lumbar region and trimming the rest down to bare basics.

I then gave cushions to my family members. My parents kept theirs permanently installed in their car seat until they were no longer driving due to old age. They said it was super comfortable.

My brother prefered to place his cushion in his office chair. This prompted me to add side straps to the cushion, in addition to the top strap that was designed to clip over the headrest in a car.

I then showed the cushion to my chiropractors. They completely approved of the design. One of them told me that an elderly practitioner had made a similar recommendation many years earlier, which was to roll a towel into a narrow strip and drape it down the length of a lounge chair to support the spine while sitting.

She had also recommended placing a rolled-up towel down the length of a yoga mat. The idea was to lie with your spine positioned on the length of the rolled-up towel for a few minutes every day. This would help the muscles to get back into their correct positions and basically open up the chest. Try it!

My chiropractor demonstrated these techniques. The width of the rolled-up towel was roughly the same size as the strip I had designed in the RidgeBack.

My chiropractors have continued to sell my cushion to their clients over the years since then. The practice is located in Randpark Ridge, Johannesburg.

A couple of years later, a chiropractic student studied the RidgeBack in the research part of her degree. I supplied cushions, and she later shared her results with me. The findings showed that the RidgeBack made a genuine difference to the position of the spine while sitting in a chair. The alignment between the ear, shoulder, and hip was better with the cushion than without it. How exciting! The physical benefits I experienced from driving with the cushion were now academically substantiated. The diagrams below are based on the real-life photos that were collected during her study.

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