How can ergonomics help to reduce strain on the body during activities?

Question

Dr. Lisa Goodman, DC · Answer

Hey, it's Dr. Lisa Goodman. How can ergonomics help to reduce strain on the body during activities? Well, I mean, ergonomics are so important. I kind of obsess over ergonomics on a daily basis. If somebody's on their phone and their head is in their lap, I see this everywhere I go all day long. The head weighs so much and to place that in front of your tailbone is so dangerous ergonomically. We'll use this guy just to demonstrate real quick. Basically, the head should always be over the tailbone. That's a stacked, balanced system. Well, when we're looking at our phone and it's literally off the screen because we're bending into our lap, your body actually can deform this way. We're seeing it earlier and earlier, younger and younger. So we need to, when we're using our devices, make sure that we're bringing our phone to our face in a sense as opposed to our face to our phone and at the same time having your elbows supported or at least just placing your device on a surface that's at eye level. But this conversation can continue into physical exercise, skiing, CrossFit, running, you name it. If we aren't doing things properly in a more beneficial ergonomic way, we're going to increase our chances of injury. Throwing, sports, swimming, if we do it poorly, it will add up and that's called repetitive stress injury.

Dr. Sean Burkhardt,DC,FIBFN-FN,CCSP,CFMP,CSCS,CSPS,TSAC-F,PES,CES · Answer

Hey everyone, Dr. Sean here. My question is how can ergonomics help to reduce strain on the body during activities? Well ergonomics is actually a form of measurement on how efficient people are in their working environment. So if we're working on a computer there's going to be an ergonomic setup of their desk and their computer station to lessen the amount of strain on their body while they're seated versus ergonomics can also be measured in a weight training or a strength and conditioning environment because you're still looking at how efficient people are using their tool which is themselves. So the way that this can reduce strain on the body is actually measuring what the body is capable of doing compared to the quote-unquote normal and the normal minimums. Like we're not so concerned with hitting these high standards yet if you can't even hit the minimums. So movement screens are awesome because that will tell us how efficient you are at moving and interacting with yourself and then ergonomic assessments of your environment such as a workstation will see how you interact with your environment. So again ergonomics is looking at how efficient you are but we have to see how efficient you are in your environment and how efficient you are at utilizing yourself within your environment.

Bart Green, DC, MSEd, PhD · Answer

When people think about ergonomics, they oftentimes just think about sitting at a desk and what position their body is in. And while that's certainly a type of ergonomic situation, it's not ergonomics in itself. Ergonomics is how well people work in their environment or how efficiently they work in their environment. And so that is entirely context dependent. The ergonomics of somebody who is an athlete in a specific sport will be much different than the ergonomics of somebody flying an airplane or somebody who's working on a computer. So the most effective answer I think is that ergonomics are important to reducing strain, not only structurally, because if you're going through thousands or millions of repetitive movements that can affect structure, but also physiologically and physically in movement, how much more efficient can somebody be in accomplishing their task, which can reduce the amount of strain on tissue, but also improve their performance. So that's how I believe that ergonomics can help reduce strain on your body during various activities.

Dr. Ted Forcum · Answer

Can ergonomics help to reduce strain on the body during activity? And the answer is absolutely yes. So ergonomics is going to be your position of your body during task activities such as working at your desk or if you're a clerk working at a grocery store counter. Your body position and posture in those activities will have a huge effect onto your ability to perform as an athlete or to do other types of important functional activities. A good example of that is a common posture of where the person's got rounded shoulders or heads drop forward. And I challenge you to do this yourself is to roll your shoulders forward, bring your head forward and then try to reach up overhead. So if you get into, it limits you, you just can't raise up any higher to where if you get good posture, now all of a sudden you can raise your arm completely overhead. Now think about that in terms of certain types of sports such as basketball, your ability to block a shot or baseball, your ability to catch a ball out in center field. So it can have a huge factor in cycling, your ability to get down into a drop bar or arrow position and reduce strain on your neck. In addition to the strain on your neck, it allows you to get air exchange in because now you're using your diaphragm more appropriately instead of these small neck muscles to breathe. So huge effect on activity. So body posture is a huge role in terms of relating at the end of the day on athletic performance.

Nicky Kirk, DC, MS · Answer

The term ergonomics relates to an individual's efficiency and usually it's used in the context of their working environment, but equally as much it could be applied to sport or movement. So how can ergonomics help? Well, first of all, ergonomics is going to relate to the manipulation of the environment to better fit the individual who's working there. So in the terms of an office chair, it could be something which decreases the amount of stress or strain on muscles, tendons, ligaments or joints. Similarly, it could be the same in the case of a cyclist. We would look at the fitting mechanics of the bike to make sure that ergonomically the individual is able to work in the most efficient and energy effective way to increase performance and hopefully decrease injury.

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"How can ergonomics help to reduce strain on the body during activities?"