Ergonomics: The Missing Link to Getting Rid of Your Back Pain?
Proper ergonomics is a critical component to ensuring your productivity in the workplace is not limited secondary to neck or back pain. It is also absolutely vital for taking unnecessary stresses off your neck, back, and shoulders.
Unfortunately, the term has become so widely used today that most people don’t really understand what it is all about. Whereas the term used to apply mainly to ergonomics in the workplace, now you see it advertised on everything from comfy recliners to cars, computers, and office equipment.
In order to make sure there’s no misunderstanding and that we’re all starting with a good foundation, let’s define ergonomics as the science related to a person and their work environment (equipment and the workplace) and how they affect human performance. The overall goal of ergonomics is to create a work environment that is safe for the worker, to prevent typical work-related injuries, and to allow the individual to perform their duties in an optimal and efficient manner.
It is so important for back pain sufferers to understand how proper ergonomics can play a vital role in helping to relieve and eliminate neck and back pain. For that reason, I’ve put together a number of articles discussing the importance of this issue and how you can apply some key principles to improve your daily activities, while decreasing unnecessary stress on your neck and back. In this section of our web-site, we’ll make sure you understand some of the most vital components to improving your ergonomics in the workplace.
Not only will I teach you how to perform a proper office ergonomics assessment, I’ll also teach you how to find a good ergonomics chair and discuss how to ensure your workstation is set up to maximize your productivity, efficiency, and safety. Additionally, for those of you that use a computer often, I also put together an article on keyboard ergonomics to ensure you’re not missing this critical piece to a proper office setup…and to improve the way you use computers at home, in the office, and on the go.
In Physical Therapy, we typically see two types of work-related musculoskeletal injuries:
- Injuries caused from poor postures over time.
- Injuries caused from lack of knowledge on proper body mechanics.
For that reason, I want to make sure you understand how ergonomics posture alone is critical to improving your body mechanics, movement patterns, and the way you function in the workplace, all of which drastically decrease your chances of sustaining a work-related injury. Whether you work primarily sitting in an office, in construction, or in another type of physically demanding job, it is vital you understand how to achieve and function in a proper posture throughout all your daily activities.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, ergonomics is used so much commercially these days that many people are confused as to how to define it in the first place, much less how to apply it to make for a safer, healthier, more efficient workplace.
At The Back University, our goal is to not only teach you how to get out of pain in the first place, but more importantly, to give you the tools/knowledge you need in order to keep it from coming back. I want to encourage you to continue the learning process with us. Check out the rest of the articles in this section of our web-site, and we’ll take you step-by-step through the critical ergonomics issues you need to start addressing today; believe me…your neck and back are going to thank you for it!