Fitness Around The Clock

Injury prevention requires a multifaceted approach, as no one intervention has been shown in the literature to have an overwhelming effect on reducing injuries.

If you approach injury prevention from a public health perspective, there are three primary targets of injury prevention: the worker, the work, and the work site.

"Fitness around the clock" targets one of the weak links in the injury prevention chain: the worker. Just as you can increase resistance to certain diseases by vaccination, you can increase resistance to musculoskeletal injuries through a variety of methods. These include increasing workers' awareness of hazards, instructing workers in safe lifting and materials handling techniques and improving the resilience of the worker to injury through improved flexibility, posture and strength.

An injury occurs when an expected, or unexpected, physical stress overloads and overwhelms the worker's level of strength and flexibility. The philosophy behind "Fitness Around the Clock" is to encourage workers to achieve a higher level of flexibility and identify how this can be beneficial to the worker both on and off the job.

Program Components

I. Posture: Things your mother never told you....

Posture is an important building block for injury prevention. This segment of the program provides an overview on what "good" posture is and how poor posture contributes to injury.

For example, did you know that a round shouldered posture can place a great deal of stress on the rotator cuff tendons where they attach in the shoulder? This stress may lead to "fraying" of the tendons and predispose someone to a rotator cuff tear.

II. Flexibility: To each his own...

Each individual has a different level of flexibility. Tightness in certain muscle groups can make some every day movements an invitation to injury. This segment of the program identifies the muscle groups most frequently found to be tight and provides some self tests for flexibility.

III. Stretching: Easy does it!

This program segment provides instruction in the proper way to stretch problem areas. Remember those grade school days when you bounced down to touch your toes...there is a better way!

The "Fitness Around the Clock" program is individualized to include work site examples and to address the specific concerns of management related to injury control. Programs are presented in "plain English" without the medical jargon that can lose an audience quickly.