Best Gaming Chair for Small People in Australia: The Seat Height Rule Nobody Explains

Your feet do not touch.

You sit down in a new chair. Your feet hang just above the floor, or your toes barely graze it. You lean forward to compensate, or you perch on the front edge of the seat. Within an hour, the backs of your knees ache. Within two, your lower back has taken over the job your feet were supposed to do. This is not bad posture. It is a chair built for a body that is not yours.

Most gaming chairs are designed around an average adult male frame, roughly 175 to 180cm. If you are under about 165cm, that design decision shows up the moment you sit down, not after a long session. The good news is this problem has a precise, measurable fix. It is not about finding a chair with a nicer name or a smaller-sounding label. It comes down to one number.

Xallking Australia builds ergonomic gaming chairs across a real height range, including two models with the lowest seat heights in the market. This guide explains the measurement that actually matters, how to take it yourself, and which chairs fit which bodies.

The One Measurement That Decides Whether a Chair Fits

Every gaming chair buying guide talks about lumbar support, armrests, and recline angle. For a shorter person, none of that matters until one number is right first: popliteal height. This is the distance from the floor to the back of your knee when you are seated with your thigh level. It is the single measurement that decides whether a chair's minimum seat height will actually work for your body.

Ergonomics research is specific about this. The seat height of a chair should sit between 88 and 95 percent of your popliteal height. Go higher than that and your feet lift off the floor, or you are forced to perch on the front of the seat. A 2025 anthropometric mismatch study found that fewer than 20 percent of the students measured could find an acceptable chair and desk combination from standard classroom furniture. The chairs were not badly made. They were simply built around dimensions that did not match a large share of the people sitting in them. The same mismatch applies directly to gaming chairs bought off the shelf in Australia.

Why dangling feet are not just uncomfortable

When your feet cannot rest flat, the front edge of the seat presses into the back of your thighs, near the knee. This is called popliteal pressure. It compresses the blood vessels and nerves running behind the knee, which is what produces the pins-and-needles feeling and the restless-leg fidgeting that shows up in long sessions. It is not a circulation quirk specific to you. It is a direct mechanical result of a seat edge sitting where it should not.

The knock-on effect reaches your back too. If you shift forward to get your feet flat, the seat no longer supports your thighs and your lower back loses contact with the lumbar support. You end up choosing between your knees and your spine. A chair that starts low enough removes that trade-off completely.

How to Measure Your Own Popliteal Height in Two Minutes

This takes a chair, a tape measure, and about two minutes. No app, no guesswork.

Step 1. Sit on a firm surface, a dining chair or a step, with your thigh roughly level and your knee bent at 90 degrees.

Step 2. Measure straight down from the crease behind your knee to the floor. This is your popliteal height.

Step 3. Multiply that number by 0.88 and by 0.95. That gives you a target range for seat height. Anything in that range should let your feet sit flat with your knees close to a right angle.

As a rough shortcut before you measure, popliteal height sits at roughly 25 percent of standing height for most adults. A person at 155cm typically has a popliteal height close to 39cm, putting the ideal seat height range at roughly 34 to 37cm. A person at 165cm sits closer to 41 to 42cm popliteal height, with a target seat range around 36 to 40cm. Use the shortcut to narrow your search, then confirm with the actual measurement before buying.

The 60 percent problem:  Standard office and gaming chair ranges are built to fit the middle of the population. Sizing research puts that figure at around 60 percent of adults. The other 40 percent, including most people under 165cm, are working outside the range the chair was designed for.

Seat Depth: The Second Number That Matters

Seat height gets your feet flat. Seat depth decides whether your back can reach the lumbar support at the same time. If the seat is too deep for your leg length, you face the same trade-off as before: sit back for lumbar contact and the front edge digs into your knees, or sit forward to protect your knees and your lower back loses support entirely.

The check is simple. Sit fully back against the backrest. There should be a gap of two to three finger widths between the front edge of the seat and the back of your knee. Less than that, the seat is too deep. A fixed seat depth is not automatically wrong for a shorter person, but it means the depth number matters as much as the height number when you are comparing chairs.

Free Fixes Before You Buy a New Chair

If your current chair is close but not quite right, these cost nothing and take minutes.

A firm footrest. If a chair cannot go low enough on its own, a solid, non-slip footrest closes the gap. This is a genuine fix, not a compromise. It achieves the same outcome as a lower seat: feet flat, knees near 90 degrees, no popliteal pressure.

Reposition the lumbar support first. Before assuming the whole chair is wrong, check whether the lumbar support is simply sitting too low for your torso. Raise it until it contacts the natural inward curve of your lower back, not your mid-back.

Bring the desk down, not just the chair up. A desk that is too high forces you to raise the chair to compensate, which then puts your feet back in the air. If the desk allows height adjustment, lowering it can let you keep the seat at the correct height without losing keyboard position.

These fixes solve configuration problems. They do not fix a chair whose minimum seat height is still too high for you even at its lowest setting. For that, see does a gaming chair actually make a difference for the full picture on when a chair change is the right call and when it is not.

Which Xallking Chairs Fit Shorter Australians

Two Xallking models share the lowest minimum seat height in the range, at 42.5cm. That figure matters because it is close to the popliteal height of an average adult around 165 to 168cm, meaning it also works well below that with a footrest closing the last gap.

X5C: full mesh, fixed seat depth

The Xallking X5C carries the lowest minimum seat height in the range at 42.5cm, paired with full adaptive breathable mesh. The seat depth is fixed at 51cm, which suits most users above roughly 165cm without adjustment. For a shorter frame with proportionally shorter legs, check the two-to-three-finger gap described above before buying, since the fixed depth cannot be adjusted down if it is too deep for your leg length.

X5S: entry tier, same starting height

The Xallking X5S shares the same 42.5cm minimum seat height as the X5C at a lower price point, with integrated lumbar support and adjustable armrests. It does not carry the full mesh construction of the X5C, which matters more in warm Australian rooms without air conditioning than it does for seat fit specifically. For buyers where seat height is the primary concern and budget is a factor, this is the practical starting point.

When neither model goes low enough alone

For standing heights under roughly 155cm, both Xallking models sit above the ideal popliteal-height range at their lowest setting. This is not unique to Xallking. It reflects a real gap in adjustment range across the gaming chair market generally at this end of the height scale. A firm footrest is the correct and complete fix here, not a fallback. Combined with the X5C or X5S at their lowest setting, a footrest closes the remaining height gap while keeping the seat depth, lumbar position, and armrest specification that a shorter frame still needs.

What to Check Beyond Seat Height

Seat height and depth solve the fit problem. The rest of the specification still matters for whether the chair actually supports you through a long session. Integrated adjustable lumbar, rather than a detachable pillow, matters more for a shorter torso, since a pillow's fixed height is even less likely to land in the right place. Armrests need to adjust down as well as up. Standard armrest ranges are often built assuming a higher seat position than a shorter person will use, which can leave the armrests too high once the seat is correctly lowered. For the full specification framework covering all six variables that matter when buying any gaming chair in Australia, see what to look for when buying a gaming chair in Australia.

The Research Behind This Guide

• Anthropometric chair-desk mismatch study (2025), J@ti Undip Jurnal Teknik Industri: measured student body dimensions against classroom furniture. Fewer than 20 percent of students could find an acceptable chair and desk combination. Seat height should fall between 88 and 95 percent of popliteal height, per Parcells et al. (1999) as cited in the study.

• Merryfair ergonomic chair sizing reference: standard office and gaming chair ranges fit approximately 60 percent of the adult population by seat height alone, leaving the remaining 40 percent, including most adults under 165cm, outside the designed range.

• Eureka Ergonomic chair adjustment guidance: dangling legs create popliteal pressure, compression behind the knee that can produce swelling and discomfort during extended sitting. A seat that is too deep forces a choice between lumbar contact and knee clearance.

• General anthropometric ratio: popliteal height averages approximately 25 percent of standing height in adults, used as the basis for the rough estimation method in this guide. Individual leg-to-torso proportions vary and should be confirmed with direct measurement.

The Bottom Line

A gaming chair that does not fit a shorter frame is not a brand problem. It is a measurement problem. Standard seat height ranges are built around the middle of the population, and popliteal height, the distance from floor to the back of your knee, decides whether any specific chair sits inside or outside that range for you.

Measure yourself before you shop. Multiply your popliteal height by 0.88 and 0.95 to get your target seat height range. Check seat depth with the two-to-three-finger test. If no chair goes low enough on its own, a footrest is a complete fix, not a compromise.

Browse the Xallking gaming chair range and check the X5C and X5S against your own measurement before you decide.

The right chair is not the one with the best reviews. It is the one that matches your popliteal height.