Seating position help?

[Peter Donkersloot]

Hi guys, recently I have been spending more time sim racing and have encountered some body issues. Mainly legs but lower back is joining the party. I'll get a numb ass after a little while, and recently my legs have become numb and even had shooting pain when heavy braking. I guess this is due to seating position? And lack of cushion? I have a sparco grid seat with lumbar support pad. The pad seems to make it more uncomfortable to sit in. Anyone had this issue and what did you do to get rid of it?
Thanks (sorry if this isn't in the correct part of the forum)

 

[stigs2cousin]

Hy Peter,

welcome to the forum.

In my own experience the seating position in ther simrig has other requirements than in a car.
When beginning with simdriving in January 2020 I tried to copy the seating position from my personal car as closely as possible. that didn´t work out so well.

Over time my pedals kept creeping away to a position where the legs are much straighter than in my car and the brake pedal with a heavy load cell is almost straight befor the left knee ( shooting pain)

When driving stick with Heel´n´Toe the clutch and brake are shoved to the right so i can reach the accelerator from the brake.

Regarding back pain, I had some problems with my shoulders, the complete upright backrest from my personal car didn´t work out at all.
Angling the backrest back a little ( though I detest people lying in their cars) did help the problem.
That could help with the numb legs and backside also.

I did quite some experimentation with seat height and distance to the wheel.
Now that i think i´ve found the right position I took the sliders out.
The (very ) used sliders did add aquite a bit of movement and creaking.

So, I´m afraid you have some experimentation to do to find a position you can live with.

MFG Carsten

 

[RedBull48]

@Peter Donkersloot It may help to share the specs of your setup along with if you are using a form of rig, wheel stand, desk and what sort of seating position you currently use.

 

[Clover11]

I am going to guess that your seat is pretty upright which puts all the pressure on your tail bone. If you can, try both moving it forward a bit and leaning it back at an angle more so your legs angle up slightly and you have some weight on your lower back and see if that helps. You will need to move the seat a little forward so you don't lean forward in your seat as you turn the wheel.

 

[Peter Donkersloot]

It's a tr1 from SIM lab, with a sparco grid seat raised on inch spacers with some generic side mounts. OEM cushions with added lumbar cushion. I have tilted it back but I'm limited by the mounts, top hole in the front and second hole on the back. I leveled the seat out last night and I think it made it worse. My shoulders, arms and neck seem ok. My probably seems to be lower back down to feet.

 

[RedBull48]

Perter I definitely think you will want a bit of tilt with your seat. If you would like a bit more customization you could get some additional profile and brackets and mount a solution similar to mine. It allows for easy tilt, height, and forward / backward movement of the seat. I have attached a picture for reference. I don't have a commercial rig but rather one custom built from profile. The beauty of this product however is you can tailor it however you want

I am actually in the process of rebuilding various bits of my rig as I just ordered an NRG bucket seat and upgraded to direct drive.

 

[Tom_Hampton]

It's a tr1 from SIM lab, with a sparco grid seat raised on inch spacers with some generic side mounts. OEM cushions with added lumbar cushion. I have tilted it back but I'm limited by the mounts, top hole in the front and second hole on the back. I leveled the seat out last night and I think it made it worse. My shoulders, arms and neck seem ok. My probably seems to be lower back down to feet.

Pictures would definitely help. But, most GT style driving positions gravitate to about a 20* layback angle. If you are any more upright than that, you should find a way to relax the angle...as everyone else has noted.

Lumbar supports are always a goldilox kind of thing. Too much is as bad (or worse) as too little. I always find that if it feels comfortable during the first 5 minutes, its going to be too much after 2 hours. And "half as much" doesn't seem like enough at first, but is just about perfect after a long stint.

 

[Clover11]

Not sure if you have room on your seat brackets, but I needed to drill extra holes in mine to be able to recline it more. I'm actually maxed out on what I can do with the brackets though and would love a set that had a wider area to begin with. This brings us a good question that I have thought to ask but never have.

What seat brackets do people use that give them good adjustment range? I have the cheap ones available from Sim Labs and wish they were wider set between the holes for my Racetech seat. The profile solution posted above looks fantastic, but for those looking to buy brackets, are the Sparco, NRG, or something else the way to go? I think Sparco even has multiple options.

 

[Ruttman98]

You might able to use aluminum profile joining plates or another solution with brackets like I did to incline my seat:

Aluminum extrusion rig budget seat mounting options

A Long Story . . . After months of researching composite seat options and chasing Craigslist, Facebook, and Ebay offerings all over the U.S., I FINALLY purchased a fiberglass fixed bucket seat last weekend in anticipation of installing four Dayton exciters and one or two Buttkicker Mini LFEs...

www.racedepartment.com

 

[stigs2cousin]

An overview over sidemounts for racing seats.

I´d prefer the motorsport mounts as normaly they are more stable than the playseat mounts.

Seitliche Befestigungen

Für alle Sitze mit Seitenbefestigung bieten wir verschiedene Konsolen aus Stahl, Alu oder speziellen Materialien an. Die Konsolen werden seitlich…

www.sandtler24.de

With some of them it wouldn´t be too difficult to shorten the rear mounts to get a better angle.

MFG Carsten

 

[RCHeliguy]

Here's a picture of my seating position if that helps.

 

[Peter Donkersloot]

Ok I modified the seat mounts to allow more angle. Found some foam for extra padding In the seat pad. Moved the wheel to suit the new seat position. Hit a road block with the pedals. As you move the plate forward ,the angle increases in the pedals moving higher. So to get the angle I want my legs at I need to raise the seat I think. I doubt I could get a photo my room is so small haha but so far stuffs helping. So thanks so far

 

[RedBull48]

Glad to hear your making some progress, as we all know it's a constant game of tinkering but that's half the fun!

 

[metalnwood]

Ok I modified the seat mounts to allow more angle. Found some foam for extra padding In the seat pad. Moved the wheel to suit the new seat position. Hit a road block with the pedals. As you move the plate forward ,the angle increases in the pedals moving higher. So to get the angle I want my legs at I need to raise the seat I think. I doubt I could get a photo my room is so small haha but so far stuffs helping. So thanks so far

Bear in mind that the more you tilt the seat, depending on your seat the more you may be pushing the bottom of your thigh through the seat if its not quite right. You want to get the distance to pedals right so that the seat gives your thighs good support but still lets you extend a bit to press pedals.

Bring the pedals too close and your legs are too bent, thighs raised off the seat so that too much weight is on your tailbone and not enough weight on legs.

I find with my setup, a reasonable recline around 40 degrees, which is like many gt3's, I have my weight distributed very well with no heavy points. Also when I press hard on the brake I feel it going right through the small of my back which is a nice stretch

 

[Elaphe]

My driving position.

 

[Peter Donkersloot]

My driving position.

That's what I'm trying to get with the legs but I will have to raise my seat. I guess this is something simlab could improve in the tr1. I think I have a plan but I'm not sure it will hold up. I will try and get a photo

 

[Peter Donkersloot]

Ok so this is the pedal plate not attached to the rig. Usually it attaches to the thick metal upright bracket but my plan is to attach it to the profile either side of the plate. This should keep it flatter when moving it forward. However, will the force of braking be too much for the m8 bolts on the profile? Will it deform the aluminium?

 

[Peter Donkersloot]

I will cut some spacers to put in the gap and it will attach to the top channel in the profile. I don't want to ruin the profile lengths ideally.

 

[Peter Donkersloot]

So day one after the mods.
I did an hour or so and no shooting leg pains on the brake. But my ass went numb again and stayed kinda numb for 2 hours haha off to the back doctor for an inspection I think. Thanks for the help so far, not being able to race sucks

 

[RedBull48]

Sorry to hear your having soo many issues. I myself struggle with a lot of lower back pain. Not really due to sim racing but it certainly limits my ability to do so at times. Hope you get better soon.