As you seek to minimize the impact of workplace injuries to yourself or your employees, injury prevention is a high priority, often done through regulations, procedures, and safety measures. But are there other ways to prevent injury on an individual level? Could empowering people to think more like athletes, who take great care to stretch and warm up before performing, be worth your focus as well?
Does stretching prevent injuries?
Simply saying “stretching prevents injuries” is way too general, especially applying it to an entire job type or industry. It’s not like doing a single stretch for 30 seconds before lifting something heavy will always prevent you from pulling a back muscle. Instead, we need to understand what kinds of stretching and warm-ups provide certain benefits, and whether those benefits would apply in real-world workplace scenarios.
Benefits of stretching
The research on both static and dynamic stretching are clear about one thing: you have to stretch consistently to see any benefits. In most studies, this means performing a series of stretches at least once per day for more than 2 weeks. The results of these stretching studies generally support the idea that stretching:
- Improves blood pressure
- Lessens soreness and stiffness after exercise
- Increases range of motion compared to those who didn’t have a stretching routine
This is still too general to be able to apply to a specific workplace, which is why having an expert on the inside who can learn your unique workplace conditions, team members, and job responsibilities is both the most effective and targeted way to decrease the risk of injuries.
Workplace demands on the body
The role of stretching and warming up in injury prevention is dependent on many things, including fitness level, proper technique, and how it relates to your workload. Certainly, though, exerting yourself without warming up your muscles tends to lead to a higher risk of injury or discomfort later on. So if you’ve been sitting at a desk all day, you may want to warm up, stretch, or otherwise get your blood flowing before immediately performing heavy labor.
Other workplace “demands” may go unnoticed, such as the demands placed on an office worker’s wrists, back, and neck as they sit at a desk all day. In this case, stretching can be beneficial as it provides a way for increased bloodflow and muscle movement during an otherwise sedentary day. The benefits of low-intensity workouts and keeping your joints flexible are well-known, and could be an area your fellow office-workers aren’t paying enough attention to.
Does stretching make a difference at work?
The best way to know whether starting a stretching or regular warm-up routine will help your specific workplace and job is by thinking of yourself more like an athlete. Athletes lean heavily on the expertise of athletic trainers to help them stay healthy and performance-ready through exertion and injury. Laborers and office workers deserve the same attention, and our Work-Fit teams provide just that.
Stretching for manual labor tasks
For people who are physically active at work, stretching should be an individualized activity that helps each person warm up and cool down in the way their body needs. This is where having an on-site team is incredibly helpful whether you’re operating a warehouse or are in the airline or manufacturing industry.
Labor-intensive jobs may be best-suited for post-exertion stretching or cool-down/recovery activities to decrease stiffness, in addition to ergonomics assessments to reduce repetitive stress injuries. Cool-down ideas include:
- Standing quad stretch
- Lunging calf stretch
- Knee-to-chest stretch
- Arm circles
- Chest stretches
- Shoulder blade squeeze
Stretching for working at a desk
When you work at a desk all (or most) of the day, your ergonomics matter a great deal. You may not notice it, but using a keyboard and mouse are repetitive stressors that can lead to injury without proper support and posture, and being stiff throughout the day only increases the risk of this developing.
For desk workers, stretches and microbreak movements to consider incorporating include:
- Shoulder rolls
- Wrist flexor/extensor stretch
- Neck stretches
- Squats
- Back extensions
Remember, getting the benefits of stretching and microbreak movements means being consistent with them. If you’re not getting up and moving around more than once per hour, start doing so, and incorporate dynamic stretching movements when you feel yourself becoming tense or stiff.
Your partner in workplace wellness and injury prevention
Our team is ready to come alongside your strategies with expert support from professional athletic trainers who apply the best practices from high-performance athletes to your team members. Among the many reasons to invest in preventative strategies like warming up, stretching, and ergonomics are fewer workplace injuries, less downtime, and fewer claims.
Learn more about how we fit seamlessly into your workplace and routine by contacting our team or giving us a call.
