WORK (It can be a pain!)

It's incredible the amount of people who are injured at work or are affected at work by injury!

The interesting thing is that it's not always what you think. I personally don't see many brick layers but see loads of patients from an office based background.

Why is this though?

Here are some stats to show what's going on out there:

• Musculoskeletal pain syndromes are seldom caused by isolated events, but are the consequences of habitual imbalances in the movement system
• The prevalence of self-reported musculoskeletal disorders among school teachers ranges between 39% & 95%. Erick PN, Smith DR. (2011)
• Over a third of all three day injuries reported to the HSE are caused by manual handling
• 1.2 million people suffered an injury they believe was caused or made worse by their current or past job
• Up to 80% of people will experience a back problem during their working lives
• In the UK in 2007/2008: on average, each person suffering from an upper-limb disorder took 13.3 days off work
• 24.7% of European workers complain of backache, 22.8%: muscle pain, 45.5%: working in painful/tiring positions & 35% handle heavy loads

What is the cost of all this?

• Lower back pain's cost to UK employers is £315-£335 million
• On average, each person suffering with Lower Back pain took an estimated 18.7 days off work

So as you can see it is a huge problem! And as you can see it’s pretty likely to happen to you. The truth is you can make a difference. If you work at a computer then you need to firstly make sure that your work station is set up properly for you.

"An arm support together with an alternative mouse may prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders of the neck & shoulder." (Hoe et al 2012)

However this alone isn't enough as you aren't designed for this activity, you are designed for movement! So you need to regularly move your neck and shoulders and get up and move around whenever possible.

What is your job is Physical?

If your job is more Physical then ask yourself this: Do I warm up? Do I stretch? Do I train for the demands of my work? The common answer is no! You wouldn't find a professional footballer, who’s job it is to play the game, not training, warming up or stretching, would you? So what’s the difference in principal with your job?

So you must get to work and warm up the muscles that you are going to use during your day.

Warm-up: submaximal intensity aerobic activity followed by large amplitude dynamic stretching & sport-specific activities Behm et al (2011)

Statically stretch regularly the joints and muscles that you are using through the day too:

Desk based exercises

·         Neck Flexion:

 

Tuck chin in and then bend the neck forwards down into your chest as far as you can and hold for 30 secs. Repeat 3 times daily

·         Neck right rotation:

 

Turn head to look over your right shoulder and hold for 30 secs. Repeat 3 times daily.

·         Neck left rotation:

Turn head to look over your left shoulder and hold for 30 secs. Repeat 3 times daily

·         Neck right side flexion:

Tilt your head to bring your right ear to right shoulder, keep your face looking forwards throughout and don’t let your left shoulder rise up. Hold for 30 secs and repeat 3 times daily

·         Neck left side flexion:

Tilt your head to bring your left ear to left shoulder, keep your face looking forwards throughout and don’t let your right shoulder rise up. Hold for 30 secs and repeat 3 times daily

·         Retractions:

 

Tuck your chin in by gliding your head backwards, don’t tip your head back or forwards, hold for 10 secs then relax to neutral position and repeat 3 times.

·         Upper thoracic extension :

Link you fingers together around the back of your neck and bring your elbows together at the front. Now lift your elbows up to so that your head, neck and arms move as one. Make sure your lower back doesn’t arch and that only your upper back arches. Hold for 5 secs and repeat 5 times.

     

·         Wrist Extensor stretch:

With your elbow straight and your hand palm facing down, bend your wrist so that your fingers point towards the floor, use your opposite hand to apply extra stretch. Hold for 30 secs.

·         Wrist Flexor stretch:

With your elbow straight and your hand palm facing up, extend your wrist so that your fingers point towards the floor, use your opposite hand to apply extra stretch. Hold for 30 secs.

·         Pronation and Supination stretch:

With your arms by your side and your elbows bend at 90 degrees, interlink your finger in front of you with your thumbs on the top. Now twist your hands so that your thumbs are pointing to the right hold for 30 secs and then twist until they are pointing to the left and hold for 30 secs.

 

Get yourself more active out of work, involving things like Pilates, strengthening, flexibility, cardio etc.

Obviously every job is different so it is difficult to be specific. If you want more information then you can contact me on:

Twitter: @mathewhawkes 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mathewhawkes.physiotherapy 

Blog: http://mathewhawkesphysiotherapy.blogspot.co.uk/