The Salli saddle chair has its origins in my dear hobby, horse riding. I have been horse riding since 1974, and among other things I've managed the planning of my farm's forest lands and supervised work on horseback. My hobby has taken me to several competitions, including show jumping and trekking events. 

Even though my way of life was active and healthy, I suffered from back pains while sitting in the office. In 1990, I told Seppo Mahlamäki, a specialist doctor of physiotherapy and rehabilitation, about how much more uncomfortable it was for me to sit in an office chair than in the saddle.

Mahlamäki told me that a riding-like sitting position would be a better alternative for me for my office work than the traditional way of sitting. He also thought that a saddle chair could be a great business idea, since at that time saddle-type chairs were not available in Finland. This marked the beginning of the development of an ergonomic office chair.

The only two-part saddle chair in the world

At first, I sat in my office with a saddle placed on top of a stool. The experiment went on for a couple of months and showed that while the sitting position was doing wonders to my back, the saddle itself was not comfortable enough for static sitting. The intense development of a new kind of seat began together with my farm's smithy workers and local upholsterers.

The first Salli Saddle chair was introduced at the Geneva Invention Expo in the autumn of 1990. The first Salli received its protection of designs in 1993. In 1997, we got a patent for a new model that had a notch in the front, to be better suited for promoting men’s genital health.

 
The development of the two-part Salli chair began in 2001. The goal was to develop an anatomically and ergonomically safe chair for both genders.  It had its origins in feedback given by a male dentist, who was getting lower back pains because it was impossible to keep the pelvis in an upright position since that position felt very uncomfortable in the genital area. The development resulted in a two-part seat that has been further developed in the 21st century. The patent application for the two-part seat, also known as the gap seat, was made instantly, and today the innovation is protected by a worldwide patent.

Salli Systems began to get feedback as early as the 1990's from users who claimed to have rehabilitated their backs with the Salli saddle chair. In addition, Salli's other health and productivity effects seemed superior compared to the conventional style of sitting. Encouraged by this information, the company decided to set its main goal as nothing smaller than changing the prevailing sitting culture. The other main goals of Salli Systems include extensive research in sitting physiology, ongoing product development, top-quality production, and solving sitting-originated problems in a customer-orientated and integrated way.

Salli Systems has already established that traditional sitting is directly connected with at least lower back and shoulder area problems, bad posture, sitting fatigue, circulation problems in the lower limbs, joint ailments in the hip and knees, slower bowel movement, insufficient breathing while sitting, headaches and poor circulation in the hip and genitalia. It has been discovered that the "Salli Solution" enables people to get almost completely rid of the above-mentioned conditions. In addition to this, Salli chair beautifies the body. Salli improves the convenience of the sitting environment notably, thereby substantially improving productivity.

Even though the prevailing sitting culture causes various ailments, there is very little ongoing physiological research into sitting.  Salli Systems is strongly promoting the founding of an independent and high-quality sitting health study centre, under the administration of any university in the world.

Veli-Jussi Jalkanen
CEO