Sharon's Soapbox
March 2004

I had a display at a Health and Safety trade show last December when a guy walked up to me and said, “You do ergonomics? Show me some stretches”. My first reaction was to try to explain the breadth of the field of ergonomics, to try to instill an appreciation for the spectrum of skills and training involved to go into a workplace and identify factors contributing to injury and lost productivity. I think I got about 10 words out of my mouth before I realized the futility. Nothing I could say was going to enlighten him.

To say that stretching is ergonomics is equivalent to saying that knowing rigging or trenching is safety, or giving a needle is nursing. Each of these fields requires a broad scope of knowledge.

A couple of years ago, my colleague Heidi participated in a debate in the ErgoWeb discussion group that I read. Her position was that stretching, on it’s own, is not ergonomics. Of course, some readers incorrectly interpreted this position as meaning that stretching should be eliminated – that it served no purpose. Well, folks, I agree with Heidi. Stretching is only a part of an ergonomic working environment. If an employer thinks that posting stretching exercises on a bulletin board is fulfilling the ergonomic needs of the employees, he/she is sadly mistaken. But, people still need to be aware of methods of reducing the physical strains that they feel at work and at home, and stretches can help with that.

An ergonomics program is a systematic approach to helping people work productively and healthily (if that’s a word). Stretching will not solve injury problems in the workplace any more than simply giving a person a new chair will solve all back problems. In both cases, the worker needs to gain an understanding of how to use their body as well as how to use the tool or process. Stretching can be a good way to introduce variety or to help you recover from static postures, but on it’s own, stretching is not good ergonomics.

Sharon

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