Month: May 2024

Warm up for work. Your body will thank you.

Just like cranking a car, a warm up gets your body working and ready for the day ahead.

Many people think that warming up is done only before playing sport. This is not the case. Warming up prepares both the body and mind for more strenuous activity such as the tasks you perform every day at work.

Think about how you start your day: In the mornings our bodies are generally cool. We have been in bed for the past 8 hours, gotten up, had some breakfast and then driven to work – not really considered strenuous work. Therefore, the body and its muscles are not necessarily prepared to handle the work tasks ahead.

A warm up is a great, refreshing way to start your shift. Additionally, if you’ve just finished your lunch break, blood flow is being diverted from your muscles to your digestive tract to help you metabolise your food. Therefore, a brief warm up before you return to work will help you get the blood flowing back to your muscles and brain again – which leaves your mind and body ready for work. Similarly, if you’ve hit a mid-afternoon slump, try an afternoon warm up instead of a chocolate bar or coffee!

Some of the specific benefits of a short warm up include:

  • Fatigue busting: a warm up increases the hormones that help regulate energy production. An effective warm up can also initiate sweating signals which will improve the cooling mechanisms and assist in thermoregulation while they work. Both of these are excellent at helping to delay the onset of fatigue.
  • Heart: increased heart rate and improved blood flow from a warm up reduces cardiovascular strain and improves nutrient delivery to muscles and joints.
  • Brain: mental preparation can enhance task focus for improved efficiency and decreased accident risks.
  • Improved range of motion: more ‘elastic’ muscles make for less resistance and reduced internal strain on your joints. Movement also stimulates joint lubrication.
  • Muscle temperature: warmer muscles contract smoothly and more efficiently, reducing the risk of straining.

 

Preparing muscles for a day’s work can also alleviate seemingly unrelated body aches because a tight muscle in one spot can lead to pain in other areas.

For example, consider you are experiencing tight hamstrings. When hamstrings are tight it can lead to lower back, knee and hip pain. Tight hamstrings can prevent the knees from straightening or the pelvis from ‘untucking’. A tucked pelvis is the primary cause of pelvic floor disorders and lower back pain. For a strong pelvic floor and back pain relief, lengthening the hamstrings is a requirement.

In summary – Warming up before you start your day can help build and improve your muscle strength. It helps muscles become more pliable, flexible and ready for movement as well as increase blood flow. More blood means more oxygen to the muscles meaning they can work more efficiently at less risk of injury. In addition, the brain needs oxygen to function well so a warm up is also a great way to stay focused and mentally sharp.

 

 

Find out more – Would you like to learn more about how a proper warm up for work routine can benefit your workforce? Or are you ready to implement regular warm up for work routines? We can help educate your staff, train ‘warm up for work champions’ to run regular warm up for work routines, or we can deliver them for you. Chat to us today about the many options available.

Employee health. Are they getting sick at home or at work?

With many people working longer hours and in some cases more than one job, the development of chronic diseases, musculoskeletal disorders and psychological illness may have its origins in the workplace.

Research has found that workers who are regularly exposed to hazardous working conditions, physically demanding tasks, high levels of stress and long working hours are more likely to consume risky levels of alcohol, reduce their level of physical activity to low, increase their likelihood of smoking and make poor nutritional choices. These habits can put strain on their overall health leading to an increased risk in chronic diseases and injuries on the job.

While these lifestyle choices may also be caused by outside factors (such as family or financial strain), the bottom line is that it impacts the employee, co-workers, workplace safety, workplace culture and business outcomes.

Could the health of your workforce be impacting your bottom line?

  • Healthier workers are almost three times more productive than their unhealthy counterparts.
  • On average, work related psychological injuries have longer recovery times, higher costs, and require more time away from work (almost four times higher than other injuries).
  • Any employees who are carrying excess weight and engaging in low levels of physical activity are more likely to be less productive and take more sick leave.

 

As you can see from the facts above, the health and wellbeing of your workforce can have a significant and very direct impact on productivity. While you can’t stop people getting sick, you can help them address health concerns when needed and implement healthy actions at work.  

Using the workplace as a setting for health promotion and education is a great way to help your employees lower their risk profiles for overall physical health as well as mental wellbeing. These types of initiatives also show your employees that they are valued and cared about which goes a long way.

 

Health by Design have a range of services, resources and programs that can help show employees the link between their actions at home, behaviours adopted at work and the risk of disease or injury due to those combined habits. Talk to us today about your workplace concerns.