Build tissue tolerance to prevent ergonomics injuries.
Ergonomics should involve a two part approach: reducing the stress placed on the body and building resilient tissues so that the body can cope with the stress being placed on it.
Too often the solution is providing a chair or making an adjustment which we think will magically cure the problem but the real solution is building quality tissues (muscles, tendons, ligaments) to cope with the stressors or the repetitive motion, contact stress she awkward postures.
Prevent Ergonomic Injuries
A fundamental concept in the application of occupational biomechanics to the workplace is that one should design workplaces so that the load imposed on a structure does not exceed the tolerance of the structure. When the magnitude of the load imposed on a tissue is less than the tissue tolerance, then the task is considered acceptable and the magnitude of the difference between the load and the tolerance is considered the safety margin.
Implicit in this concept is the idea that risk occurs when the imposed load exceeds the tissue tolerance. The only way to prevent work-related and ergonomic injuries is by Increasing the tissues capacity to tolerate load (stress). Tissue capacity is the amount of load that a tissue can tolerate. A simplified way of thinking of how ergonomic injuries occur is when a load placed on a tissue exceeds the capacity of that tissue.
When the amount of force going into a tissue exceeds the tissue’s force capacity, injury occurs. Internal strength training enhances tissue strength and durability through greater ranges of motion, in turn increasing your body’s force-capacity.
When you increase your tissues capacities, it will take more force to exceed that capacity and injure tissue. This will reduce the number of ergonomic injuries you experience and lessen the damage when injuries do occur.
Proactive. Not Reactive.
LOAD > TISSUE CAPACITY = INJURY
