Guide to wheel height for throwing while standing

[AndreaB]

Hi everyone,

Hope your new year has started  well.

I'm having serious back problems, I've seen potter's throwing standing because of this. My question is... can anyone who knows give me an indication of the correct hwell height. I've a high wheel and after today I'm thinking that it needs to be shorter, because I'm a shortie..

Thanks and have a gre9at weekend

Andrea 

[Marcia Selsor]

it depends on your body. I made my throwing seat with a slanted seat to reduce stress on the lumbar.I like it. If you don't have an adjustable wheel , you can put it in brick or something to get it right for you or raise/lower your seat. I like the angled seat idea and I think it works.I copied the benches Pietro Madelena designed for La Meridiana. ,. will try to post a pic of my bench to show the slant.

Marcia

[neilestrick]

It all depends on you. I like to have the wheel head an inch or two below the top of my hip bone. That may or may not work for you, because you're body isn't shaped like mine. Just keep trying different heights by shimming the wheel up or down until you figure out what you like. There's no set rule.

[Gabby]

There is a very good youtube on this subject put up by EvolutionStoneware. It is called Pottery Ergonomics.

[Min]

Excellent article on standing while throwing by John Glick here. I don't use a back support like Glick illustrates in the article but that might be an option for you.

[neilestrick]

Keep your abs strong. They'll take a lot of pressure off your back.

[Pres]

AndreaB,

As Neil has stated:Keep your abs strong. They'll take a lot of pressure off your back. . . . . 

I find that there are some things to do to help this out, and to alleviate the back pain to some degree. Do not sit at the wheel constant, set things up so that you have to get up to get clay, or to set a bat full of pots aside. Make the bat smaller so that you move more often, and make you wheel side pile of clay smaller to get up for more sooner. At the same time, I have found that the rocking motion of wedging in spiral or rams head, can help to loosen a stiff back, so I wedge only what I am using in the next hour or so, then wedge more. Seems the wedging motion that causes you to push down with the arms also lifts the shoulders, this along with the movement of the body can help to stretch the back.  I found this out years ago, as after dealing with pain from an old broken vertebrae injury, wedging did make things less painful.

In you home life, try to do some side plank dips, or some push ups (bent knee or otherwise) as both of these are good exercises for the abs, and the push ups work well for wedging muscles as in the triceps and the chest muscles. 

I also use a seat that slants forward, and is fully adjustable to give me multiple levels for throwing. This helps especially for my throwing position, but also when throwing off of the hump, as I adjust my height for the height of the clay.

There have been other strands for Seats and throwing positions one of these is here:

Hope I was able to help you out,

best,

Pres 

[LawPots]

I don’t right now, but I’ve used a standup powered wheel I liked.  The wheel head was at bellybutton height.  It was comfortable without a backrest, and I braced my arms on the splash pan. Folk potters in the Southern U.S.  almost all worked standing up at kick, treadle, and powered wheels that had “backrest” that they braced against to help center.  I’ve read that one of these potters insisted that it was a terribly bad habit to even learn to throw sitting down.