Month: March 2020

Staying In Work Shape During A Pandemic

Quin Bond, CEAS IIILeave a comment

The newest extension of federal physical distancing guidelines now extends until the end of April. For many, that means that they may be out of work for six or more weeks before returning to work.  When we return to work after a vacation, it can take a couple of days to get back into “work shape” but most vacations are only a week or two in duration. Six weeks is a lot longer but with a few tips, we can stay healthy and maintain fitness levels to be ready to return to work.

  • Gyms are closed but there are lots of choices that you can make. Walking is a great choice, especially if you job involves walking on a daily basis. There are many great apps that you can download onto a tablet or a smartphone that will help guide you through a home based, body weight work out. If your job involves lifting and carrying, you may have objects in your garage, shed, or yard that you can pickup and carry in the yard to simulate work type tasks. If you don’t have a weight set but want to do slightly more formal lifting, you can build your own sandbags. Sandbags can be used to simulate many gym movements. Find some steps to climb or a walking route with a hill to maintain/build leg strength. YouTube and Amazon Prime both have plenty of exercise videos that you can use for guided workouts.
    • You Are Your Own Gym is a great app, developed by an Air Force Pararescue NCO, for an at home workout that does not require any fancy equipment.  We have recommended this app to several firefighters in the past who didn’t like the gym and they loved it.
    •  A couple of simpler one exercise apps are 100 pushups, 200 situps, and 200 squats.  They work to build up the amount of repetitions you can do of each exercise.  A pre-test serves as a baseline to guide workouts.  My advice is to deduct a couple of reps from your pre-test when giving the app the information to build the workouts.
  • Maintain good sleep hygiene. A lack of sleep can compromise your immune system. Set a regular bed time and wake time.  There is a great TED Talk on sleep  by Matthew Walker as well as a great podcast interview series between him and Peter Attia, MD.   Freakonomics did a great podcast on the economics of sleep.
  • Eat healthy. This is admittedly tricky with limited selection at the food stores as well as potential per customer limits on certain products. Try to limit the amount of processed foods for main meals and limit the unhealthy snacking choices during the down time between meals. If you can, try to make sure that you pick up some fresh fruits and vegetables with each food run at the store.
  • Stay hydrated. It’s easy when you are sitting at home to either not drink enough or to drink the wrong things. But make sure that you are getting enough water and limit the soft drinks.
  • Don’t Overdo the Exercise. If you regularly train, either strength or cardio, this is not the time to be working towards a PB in a strength exercise or a PR in an event. Don’t go out and try to win KOM honors on Strava for your daily ride. Super intense workouts that leave you beat up for a day or two tend to weaken the immune system a little.   This is a time for people who regularly exercise/train to work on base building and work on correcting any weaknesses that they may have.

me sandbagRight now, I’ve been walking my talk while I’ve been working from home. We have been trying to be good about what we are eating in our house and have tried to stay to the healthier food in our every 7-10 day food runs. This helps limit the in between meal snacking. I’ve been doing some sort of exercise every day, getting the kids out for long walks or bike rides. Some of the workouts are mine alone such as kettlebell workouts, rides on my bike on the trainer, and I am starting to work my way through a deck of Bruteforce Sandbag workout cards that I had received as a stocking stuffer from my wife. Stay safe, be smart, and wash your hands.

If you have any questions about what type of exercises are appropriate to stay in work shape for a particular type of job, drop me an e-mail at quin@njergonomics.com.

Words Matter – Switching to Physical Distancing from Social Distancing

Quin Bond, CEAS IIILeave a comment

With over 15 years of writing job descriptions, post-offer testing, FCE experiences and ergonomic evaluations, you learn that in the world of workers compensation, physical rehab, and the legal realms that swirl between that words matter. We try to get people to use the term “modified duty” instead of “light duty” because the latter has been accepted by some to mean performing job demands with minimal physical requirements (some look at it as 20 pounds occasional, many look at light duty as 10 pounds or less). We’ve also tried to move people from “Pass/Fail” to “Meets/Does Not Meet” as the former is more about the individual and the latter is more about the actual demands of the position.

Mark Milligan (@MarkMilliganDPT) is an innovative DPT down in Austin, Texas who has been trying to get people moving over the last couple of years through the #IMovedToday hashtag on Twitter and has been a huge advocate for mobile and virtual services through his anywhere.healthcare business and his physical therapy practice. Mark had a great idea that he shared on Twitter on March 20, 2020. He suggested getting rid of the term “social distancing” and replacing it with “physical distancing”. I think he is definitely on to something.

physical distancing

In thinking about it, physical distancing is a significantly better term. We’re talking about staying 6 feet away from people when out in public or if the person is symptomatic at least 10 feet away. Or in California and New York (and probably New Jersey in the near future), staying in when possible and shutting down non-essential businesses to limit exposure. Physical distancing just means we are separated by a physical separation of distance. Humans by nature are social. In times like this, we shouldn’t be distancing ourselves socially from each other. We need to be reaching out by phone, text, e-mail, Facetime, or Skype to check on relatives, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Sometimes it may be just to say hello and check in but sometimes to let them vent or to vent to them. This is uncharted territory but communication and connection are two of the things that will help everyone get through this together.

 

“Virtual Classroom” Ergonomics

Quin Bond, CEAS III1 Comment

If your kids are like mine, they do their homework sitting on the couch, the bedroom floor, or maybe at the kitchen table – once in a blue moon. If they sit at a desk in their room, it typically isn’t for a long time. That’s a good thing because most of these setups aren’t great ergonomically for long periods of doing work.

It is a completely different ball game now that the schools are switching over to virtual classrooms due to the coronavirus. Students will be going online for extended periods of time to use Google classroom and other web portals to do assignments, watch instructional videos and virtual lectures/tours assigned by their teachers, etc.  This is a different situation than getting comfy and consuming streamed media for entertainment or doing a short bout of a homework.

There are several things that we can do to make sure that we improve their learning environment from an ergonomics standpoint so that we aren’t adding physical stress (musculoskeletal) to the emotional stress of this situation.  These fixes may not be ergonomically perfect, but we need to work with what we have available to us.

  • Don’t have a laptop stand? Find some books to stack underneath your ipad or laptop to get it to a better height.

savannah ipad before and after

(There are a couple of changes between photos.  In the after photo (right), the chair seat has been elevated and the feet are supported on a shoebox.  The ipad is lifted on books to help improve the viewing angle.  Note that the neck, shoulders, and arms are more relaxed in the improved posture.)

savannah laptop small before and after

 

In the after photo (above right), the laptop has been elevated on a stand to improve the vision angle.  A wireless keyboard and mouse with the laptop stand for inputting information.

  • Use a USB or wireless keyboard and mouse.
    • Don’t use the keyboard height adjusters – you want the keyboard to be somewhat flat to maintain a neutral posture at the wrist.
    • Keep the mouse close to the keyboard.  Don’t put it in a place that you need to reach away from your body for it.
  • Learn the keyboard shortcuts for your apps – this reduces the physical demand on your wrist and fingers when using the mouse.
  • If they have an adjustable chair, set it to the right height for the surface that the keyboard is sitting on.
    • If their feet don’t touch the ground, find a box or some books that they can use as a foot rest.
  • If their back isn’t touching the back rest of the chair, use a pillow to help provide some support.

Additional tips

  • Use a timer to remind your kids to look away from the screen for 20 seconds every 20 minutes. Have them refocus on something on the other side of the room to give their eyes a break.
  • At least once an hour, have them get up and move around.
  • Encourage them to drink water while they are doing their work to stay hydrated.

If your child has to use the couch, there are some small things that can be done to improve their posture.  Have them sit with their feet on the floor and a pillow behind their back for improved support (below right) instead of sitting with crossed legs.  Also, move the table close so they don’t have to reach (it could be a little closer in these photos.)

tyler couch before after

If you have any questions about how to set up your student’s “virtual classroom”, drop me an e-mail at quin@njergonomics.com, tweet me @njergonomics, or give us a call at (732) 796-7370.

 

It’s Not Just About Being Clean and Nice Looking

Quin Bond, CEAS IIILeave a comment

It’s not about being messy or being neat – although one of these looks a lot better when the customers walk up.

storing wood

It’s about putting items at optimal heights for when a customer or an employee has to lift the items. Notice that the firewood on the right is stacked on not one but two pallets. This helps bring the bags of firewood to a more optimal initial lift position than trying to pick the firewood up off of the ground.

The power zone for lifting starts at just above knee height, which is about where the handle is located on the lowermost bundles of firewood in the image on the right.  Without those two pallets as a base, the firewood would be picked up from a less than optimal height (although, with some bending at the knees we can make it a much better and safer lift).

The firewood in the image to the left has two problems.  The first is that the lower levels of firewood are stored on the ground in bags that tend to spread in a horizontal fashion, reducing the overall height of the bag.  The second is that these bags don’t have regular handles on the top which can mean that the handle is actually on the level of the ground.  The use of a spare pallet or two and some reorganizing of the bags so that they stand with the handle portion of the bag in a vertical orientation could make this “retail display” a little easier on the backs of the employees and the customers.