A lot of potters spend quite some time at their potters wheel. When teaching pottery I am often confronted with questions in relation to posture. If the potters wheel is placed too high or too low it will cause back problems.
It is therefore a good investment of your time to check whether the potters wheel is placed correctly and experiment around the ergonomics of your posture.
As so many questions in pottery, also the question related to the ergonomics of your posture at the wheel depends on a lot of different variables, such as your length, your constitution, what you want to make and your own preferences.
A lot of potters keep their seat a little higher than their wheel. This position allows you to rest your forearms on your thighs and gives you more stability to centre the clay. Sitting up higher also helps you adding strength through your body weight in collaboration with the strength of your arms. A higher position helps you as well to make higher pieces with more ease.
Other potters prefer keeping their wheel a little higher. Some wheels have adaptable legs, but most haven’t and than you need to get creative and use bricks, pallets, wooden blocks… you name it! You need to find the position that is most comfortable to you.
However, when you try your different options a couple of basics points need to be kept in mind:
- Make sure that you bend over your wheel departing from your hips and not by bending your back.
- See that your knees are positioned a little lower than your hips and that your feet are positioned at the same height.
A trick often used to keep this posture is to keep the stool a little lower towards the wheel than the backside. Stools which are specially designed for potters allow to adapt the length of each leg individually to this end.
Anyway, with these basic points in mind, make yourself comfortable as much as possible and listen to your body.
Nov 27, 2021
My name is Elisa; I am a woman, a mum, a daughter, a friend and a wife… and a passionate ceramicist/potter. 
