Ergonomics

Imagine yourself in a brand spankin’ new Honda Accord, burning down the Nascar oval making turn after turn…all left of course. This is your job, and you do this five days a week, 52 weeks a year, for years. As you can guess your new Accord probably won’t wear evenly. It’s turning only to the left, and your wheels will wear more on one side, your steering will start to pull, and your brakes will wear faster on one side. After all, you are always turning to your left with only a few straight lengths.

Reality sets in and you are at your desk where you have been five days a week, 52 weeks a year, for hundreds of years…or maybe it just feels that way. Chances are you do those same office tasks as often as you would turning left on an oval track. Those repetitive tasks add up and can cause the same wear and tear that your car would have. Over a long period of time your body, through tense, over-developed muscles, can pull you into poor posture. Someone who spends 8-10 hours a day at a computer will have rounded shoulders and a forward head posture. This adds a lot of excess pressure to your spine, neck, and back, even if you don’t notice the gradual change. An assembly line worker will also develop repetitive motion injuries, as well as the person that lays carpet or tiles.

Slightly altered posture or biomechanics can add pressure to your joints. Joints, which for the most part do not have a lot of blood flow (avascular), and need motion to get nutrients and water. When excess pressure builds, the joint moves less and less, meaning the water is no longer getting to where it needs to go and you develop degeneration, or osteoarthritis.  A forward head posture not only can be hard on your neck, but can give you TMJ problems, mid and low back pain as well as tension headaches. For every inch your head moves past your center of gravity, 10 pounds of weight is added to the stress on your neck. It’s not uncommon for someone to be two inches past, just imagine having an extra 20 pounds of stress on your neck!

The solution to poor ergonomics is to balance yourself. Proper sitting or working position is important, but sometimes our job requires us to be in a certain position for long periods of time. Certain exercises can help balance those problems. For someone who sits at a desk it is important to strengthen and tone your back muscles as well as the back of your shoulders. For someone who wears a heavy tool belt, it’s important to strengthen your abdominal muscles and your hamstrings. These muscles will help pull in the opposite direction that you work in all day.

Repetitive stress injuries also occur from poor biomechanics as well as, you guessed it, repetitive motion. Repetitive stress injuries (RSIs) account for the most work place injuries and can take months or years to develop, and often times that long or longer to heal. According to Consumer Watch Report, RSI claims can cost $20,000 to $100,000 in workman’s compensation claims. Over $20 Billion is spent each year to treat RSIs through employers, which makes that pricey ergonomic computer and chair not so pricey!

Symptoms are never the first thing to pop up in an injury, so by the time you start hurting or noticing numbness you can be assured that problem has already been there for a good deal of time. I hear often in my practice, "this just started, I don't think it's that big of a deal". Don’t ignore these smaller, less frequent irritations, because they can and will lead to bigger ones that are more difficult to treat.

Chiropractors can help restore motion into those joints that have been under all the excessive stress, which helps bring new nutrients and water into that joint.  But unless you work to balance your body through exercise and stretching, those poor biomechanics will bring the problem back. Anti-inflammatory meds can help reduce your pain and swelling in an RSI, but again, there is no fix there without effort from a change in lifestyle. 

So think of your average day and what you do the most of. Whatever that activity is, you should adjust your exercise routine to counter those forces and avoid future injuries or degeneration. Do not wait for symptoms to appear, or assume that just because you’re active at your job that qualifies as exercise. Being proactive can help you avoid these injuries and save a lot of time and money!