14 Days of Loving Your Load

This February I have been sharing my top tips about loving your load (and your body!)

If you missed my content on Twitter, you can catch up by searching #LoveYourLoad, and I’ve summarised them below:

  • Manual handling injuries can occur almost anywhere in the workplace, at home and at  leisure. When we are talking manual-handling related aches, pains and injuries, prevention is not only better than a cure, it’s easier, less painful and less time-consuming too!

Watch the video from Healthy Working Lives

  • Don’t be a statistic! According to HSE manual handling causes over a third of all workplace injuries. On average, these injuries require 3 days or longer away from work, affecting 1 million people a year and costing society £5.7 billion. 

  • Delving deeper - what do we need to consider? The law is quite specific here, consider the task, individual, load, environment, equipment and psychosocial factors - building the acronym TILEEP.

    • Start with the task – think ahead, does it require you to hold loads away from your body, twist, bend down or stretch upwards, or stoop?  

    • Does it involve carrying distances, repetitive or frequent handling or strenuous pushing or pulling? 

    • Can you plan the task to reduce these risks?

  • I asked Gitte Pedersen, an Osteopath, for her top tips when manual handling. 

Keep your head stacked on your spine. Think of your head as a stone ball balanced on top of a column. It's easy if it's in the centre, but as soon as you go out of midline muscles and tendons have to start working really hard to keep it in place, it's relative weight increases fourfold, potentially leading to neck and shoulder pain, headaches, fatigue and can affect sinuses too!

  • I am the “I” in Individual. The law recognises that every individual is different, and it is really important to recognise that your capability will vary day to day, hour by hour, due to fatigue, fitness, injury, task familiarity etc. Only you know how you are feeling and when you should ask for help. As well as health, fitness, injury etc employers need to recognise if special information/training or capability or experience is required, or if there is additional risk to those with a health problem or disability, or to those who are pregnant.

  • Get the low down on your load… What is the nature of what you are handling? 

    • It may be heavy or bulky or tricky to handle because of grip, stability or intrinsically harmful e.g. sharp/hot? (And if you are thinking of animals or people, add in unpredictable!) 

    • Can you reduce the risk? e.g. Unpacking a large or heavy load into smaller elements rather than grab and go?

  • Think about the ‘where’! The environment you are in can have a great impact on what you are doing – including the space available (an often overlooked factor), flooring, changes in levels, lighting and temperature. 

  • Equipment – a solution or an extra problem? People often think there must be a piece of equipment that will solve handling issues. In reality, equipment can be really helpful, but it will also raise a different set of issues - you then have to evaluate which is lower risk.

  • A Pro Top Tip from Sylvia Garthwaite, a professional gardener

“When choosing a spade or fork, make sure the handle is the right length for your height, you don’t want to be hunched over it or “stepping up” to it” 

  • Psychosocial – easier to explain than spell! These are factors that can affect how people feel about what they are doing e.g. their degree of control over work pace, planning and scheduling of tasks/rest breaks, boredom etc  All these are covered in more depth in the newly updated HSE guide

  • I often get told there are weight limits to the loads we can lift at work. True or false?  

The answer is that there are weight guidelines, which indicate if what we are doing is intrinsically higher risk, and needs a specific risk assessment. 

  • When is a handle not a handle? We talked about grip earlier when considering the load, but not everything that you can grip is designed to be used as a handle. Plastic strapping or binding for example, is designed to hold the load together not take its full weight, and can be pretty rough on the hands too!

  • Push or pull? The advantage of pushing and pulling, is that you are not taking the full weight of the load and can use your body weight and momentum. In general, push rather than pull, because typically you maintain a more neutral posture - when you pull, your body is often twisted and you frequently use only one hand, increasing the possibility of injury. There is detailed guidance from HSE on assessing the risks of pushing and pulling.

Pro Top Tip from Karin Major who runs Overdale Equestrian:

“When transporting heavy and bulky things use wheeled equipment like wheelbarrows to push rather than carry. In an equestrian centre for example, wet haynets or muddy horse rugs, which are heavy and you really don’t want to hold close to your body either!”

  • Take a ‘Green Cross Code’ moment! Taking a moment to stop and think before you do that Manual Handling task, just like you would before you cross the road, is the best overall top tip I can give you. A quick review of factors I’ve talked about over the last 2 weeks before you start makes a huge difference. 

Previous
Previous

My review of the Bento Box

Next
Next

Got a new gadget? This one’s for you.