Reducing Repetitive Strain: Small Changes That Can Make a BIG Difference

When we talk about repetitive strain injuries, we’re typically speaking about aches and pains that pop up in areas that are frequently used by individuals who work in the industrial setting. Common areas are hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder, neck, and low back.

You may have heard of the benefits of keeping your joints at 90-degree angles, as those positions are the most efficient, and when you’re more efficient, you need less energy and force to complete a task.

Let’s use a concept many of us are familiar with:

If you were to grab a medium-light object and hold that object out in front of you with your arm fully outstretched, you’d likely experience fatigue.

But if you were to bring that object closer to your body, bending your elbows to 90 degrees, you’d suddenly be able to hold it longer.

Furthermore, if you were to bring it next to your chest, it’d be even easier.

What does that have to do with repetitive strains?

It’s about efficiency!

If you’re sitting at your desk and you constantly move your mouse hand back and forth (ulnar and radial deviation), it’s going to use more energy and strain the tissues on either side of your wrist. Having the mouse set to the correct sensitivity and your desk set up to support your activity means less movement, less energy, and less strain.

Let’s expand this concept to the worker who must carry and lift material to certain heights. If you were to hold onto a twenty-pound weight and bring your arm to your side, then raise it straight out to the side to shoulder height, it would likely feel heavy (or be too heavy to do).

Now, if you were to try to do the same thing except instead of having your arm and elbow straight out at shoulder height, you now bend your elbow 90 degrees. The weight now feels lighter.

When doing repetitive tasks like folding boxes or lifting material to certain heights, the more efficient you are with the task, the less energy you need to expend, and the less strain you put on your muscles, ligaments, and tendons while completing the task.

If you are required to perform a lot of twisting in your job, efficiency still reigns—keeping an object closer to you makes it move faster, and less energy is used.

Review our Lifting Basics blog series for more indepth information on proper bodymechanics and considerations.

Does this mean you must always keep 90-degree angles and never deviate from them?

Absolutely not.

There’s something to be said about having a wide range of movement options available rather than doing a task one specific way. Like everything else, repetitive strain injuries aren’t solely about overloading the tissues. Efficiency has the greatest impact on repetitive and heavy tasks. Trying to always avoid areas outside of these sorts of angles will decondition tissues and make them less able to withstand movements and actions when you do have to go into those areas. This is called the Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands principle, or SAID.

The SAID principle basically says if you want to improve your ability to bend down and pick up heavy objects, you should work on bending down and picking up heavy objects.

If you want to reduce the pain in the wrist of your mouse hand, gradually working into the areas that are painful, over time, can help improve those tissues to provide a larger buffer before they get overworked.

Working with an industrial athletic trainer, physical therapist or occupational therapist can help you decrease the pain and develop a greater resilience through functional exercise and education to help you perform your job well while reducing the risk of injury.

Recap

To reduce repetitive strains on tissues of the hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder, neck and low back, one should be cognizant of body mechanics to improve efficiency, which lessen both energy demand and strain. This includes, but is not limited to, keeping objects closer to the body and having joints at 90-degree angles. That being said, the poison can also be the antidote at times, where introducing strain at tolerable levels of intensity, frequency, and duration—making it harder over time—can improve the tissues’ ability to withstand more strain (SAID principle) and is a staple in many rehabilitation programs for repetitive strain injuries.

Let’s work together to discover small changes you can implement for you workers to decrease the repetitive strain of their job.