Tips for not breaking your back in the kitchen?

Sink bottom is just over knee height for me and the counters are also low enough that any food prep or dish washing hurts unless I’m in an excessively low lunge/power stance.

Fellow tall people: If you use kneeling stools or sturdy raised trays, where did you get them? If you made actual modifications in a rental, what were they?

Short people: Relish life.

26 comments
  1. Yeah when I build my house I made sure to choose the highest possible kitchen counter, the one in the mansion was killing me, never found anything helpful sadly beside kneeling on something

  2. I just got used to the pain. I don’t know, it hurt way more 2+ years ago, but now I don’t feel any pain when doing the dishes.

  3. My last apartment also was built for chipmunks. I bought a sturdy thing at Ikea that with the oven on top equaled a more comfy height for chopping. To do the dishes I put a big bowl from the 100-yen-shop on another container from there flipped upside down to give it a few inches lift. And my back a rest. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve bumped my head on the extractor hood…

  4. I do a super-wide stance and thrust my pelvic bones against the counter edge. Even so, I end up needing to lay on my back for 2-3 minutes every time I do the dishes. Lord I wish this country would hop on the “dishwasher is standard, pre-installed in every apartment” train. I know it probably won’t happen in my lifetime, what with space at a premium, but they’re so much more efficient (water-wise) and would save many of us a great deal of pain.

  5. It is very low (presumably the kitchen was designed for the average Japanese women in……. the 80s?? idk). I’m not that tall but I prep food on the table while sitting otherwise I get back pain from hunching too long.

  6. I actually just use a step stool. Put one foot on that while cleaning and then change feet. It helps a lot actually but I’m a 5’8” female and my legs are 3’4” so I don’t know if it’s helpful for you

  7. Bought a cheap prep table on Amazon which at around 90cm is much more comfortable than the provided kitchen space.

  8. I am 6’4″ 193cm and had that problem but after lots of exercise and proper stretching I feel nothing now doing dishes.

  9. I’m 194cm tall and all legs. My kitchen countertop is 90cm, the highest I could make it, but it’s still way too low.

    I figured out a solution by having my wife do all the dishes.

  10. I got a big bucket, put that in the sink on a little mesh box and wash my dishes in that.

  11. Used to live in a place where I could do all my cooking on my knees. Now I just take a wide stance and stretch often.

  12. Tall woman and tall husband living together in a rental apartment. Even our cat has long tarantula legs. We use a wide stance and occasionally complain about back pain.. Sleeping and eating on the floor is worse, the constant kneeling is bad for knees, that’s why we eat at a table and have a bed frame. Japanese inventions are for small stature and short legs, we are the exact opposite.

    Those deep pantries are no problem tho. We can both use our long arms like Inspector Gadget to reach the furthest part of the pantry to get the grains.

    If you don’t mind me complaining a bit more, those low sofas by Japanese brands.. god I hate that feeling, like you lower your butt, keep lowering, your butt is reaching for the soft plush of the sofa but it never *touches* it.. Your butt is trapped mid air, in a never ending trip from the standing position to the cushion until you lose your balance and ungraciously fall on the seater. Luckily we were able to find a decent adjustable sofa from Nitori.

    When we build a house we are definitely getting a European kitchen.

  13. We had a taller than normal countertop installed in our kitchen. Went to Ikea, tried out the different heights and picked one that works well for me.

  14. I use a foldable plastic stool (Daiso, 550yen) and a eva foam knee protector for gardening (Daiso, 110y) on top of it. No more pain.

    It extended my life expectancy about 10 years.

  15. man, i’m sorry you’re suffering, but feel a little better knowing it’s not just me and my brittle bones. i ended up getting one of those shower stools and now wash my dishes sitting down.

  16. As a short person, I love Japanese furniture height so much. In Australia everything is too tall for me, and it’s awful.

  17. Use the back muscles. Never let the spine adopt a bridge of London pose, be the annoying yogi with the straight back at a 180 degree angle relative to flat ground when you’re hunched over. We want to be able to roll over your back like the hood of a car when the popo comes after our weed, that’s the strong and straight back we’re all after here.

  18. I found that my pain came from hanging my head and was mostly the muscles of the middle back on either side of my spine rather than the lower back. For that, I just stopped bending my neck and started just looking down with my eyes. I usually rest my forehead on the bottom lip of the cabinets. No more back pain!

  19. In a previous apartment I would half squat and push my knees into the bottom closets to use less energy.

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