Apparently so, and that accounts for this as well as the “Riker Lean” wherein Riker is always seen to be leaning on something. The video was posted at iO9 and one of the commenters there linked to Reddit where Wil Wheaton verifies the injury story.
Yeah, especially talking about Riker. Way too much room for misinterpretation there…
I remember noticing it back when TNG was first run, but it’s great to see it as a supercut.
It’s like watching Jed Bartlet put on his jacket. You don’t notice it until somebody points it out but then you can’t not notice it.
I noticed the chair thing at the time and I vaguely recall at least one occasion where Wil Wheaton did the same, presumably Wesley emulating Riker.
I hadn’t noticed the Riker Lean, but it reminds me of this.
I saw the video posted somewhere yesterday, and one of the comments was from someone who had read “somewhere” that the set designers made the chairs with low backs so they looked cool and futuristic, and Frakes sat like that once to point out to the designers that some of the cast were taller than others, and it just went on from there as a joke. No cite, unfortunately, but it’s such a weird maneuver I can see it all being a big in-joke for the cast.
That’s how it looks to me.
I’d say that’s pretty conslusive.
I read that on iO9.
What gets me is how good he is at. Its almost as if he has been doing it that way his whole life. He musta practiced that for hours or days or maybe thats his real talent.
Well, he got the role by throwing his leg over and stepping in front of Jeffrey Combs.
Well, Combs appears to have a major (make-up) appliance fetish, so he got what he really wanted, anyway…
Now that was funny!
My guess is that this is Frakes’ way of showing that Riker is a bit of a cowboy at heart. Kirk liked to swagger like The Duke; Riker likes to mount a chair like The Duke mounts a horse.
I first noticed Martin Sheen do this in The Believers (12 years before WW) and thought it was perhaps the coolest thing ever–one fluid, graceful, effortless movement executed while walking down a hallway.
Just caught a YouTube video (I’m on a smartphone and it hates making non-mobile YouTube links, but search for “West Wing Extras Season 05 - The Jacket Incident”) where Sheen says his left (upper?) arm was crushed by forceps during his birth and he has “no lateral movement” of it, so he worked that move out when he was a kid to put on a shirt, jacket, etc. Interesting!
I have an odd urge to re-watch the Gargoyles series to see if David Xanatos ever sits down Riker-style.
I’ll help you out with the link:
Thanks! It’s a short video, just over a minute, and at about 47 seconds in he gives the explanation.
Considering Worf’s lack of aim and general habit of getting his ass kicked by significantly weaker opponents (70+ year old Admiral, anyone?), that may have been his problem. 
Here he does it in Badlands in 1973.