First Published: December 17, 2018. Last Update: December 11, 2024
Every occupation is subject to injury risk factors, but this post focuses on - yes, it's possible - the risks that come with a desk job.
Let's Chat About Ergonomic Risk Factors
Whether you work in an office or have a more active occupation, your job will likely pose at least some risk for an injury or pain. Understanding ergonomics and posture can help you avoid that.
You probably have a sense of what posture it. But what is ergonomics?
Ergonomics is about how you interact with the things you use to get a job or task done.
The goal of an ergonomic improvement effort is to fit your work tools & furniture to you, and not the other way around. Establishing and maintaining a good fit between you and your furniture, workstation items and other tools is one of the best strategies for keeping your body well.
This is especially relevant because office jobs, with their many tools and items, are notorious for reducing how much movement we get in a day. Movement is necessary for life and wellness. When we don't get it, we become dysfunctional and stiff.
Good ergonomics can pinch-hit when you're required to sit still.
Here's what you might be up against at your office:
1. Awkward Posture or Positioning
Does being at your workspace twist you up in a bunch? Do you find that more times than not, you have to keep your posture in a weird contortion in order to see your monitor, answer the phone, maintain a sitting position or type?
If so, you’re likely experiencing one of the official risk factors for a work-related injury, which is awkward posture.
Awkward posture maintained throughout the day misaligns the joints and keeps the muscles in holding pattern (called static loading, discussed next) that, for the most part, only changes when you take a movement break.
This holding pattern also encourages accumulated muscle tension, which leads to stiffness and decreased physical functioning long term.
An example of awkward positioning is keeping your neck turned and/or extended all to to accommodate a monitor that is positioned off to the side or high up, i.e., not directly in front of you with the top at about eye level.
Hunchback is another example of awkward posture.
Awkward posture amplifies the effect of all the other ergonomic risk factors.
2. Static Loading
Static loading can and does amplify awkward posture. It occurs when you exert energy (by contracting muscle) to keep yourself in a non-aligned, or awkward, position.
You might think of static holding as what happens to your muscles and joints when you stay in one position all day long.
Static holding generates a lot of excess muscle contraction just to keep body parts out of alignment. The result is fatigue, constricted blood flow, less life-giving oxygen delivered to your tissues and the possibility of an injury.
Injury risk is raised because the muscles are denied the opportunity to release their contraction periodically during the day.
BTW, a more elegant approach to positioning one's self at the desk is at your disposal. This is the establishment of ideal body alignment both in sitting and in motion. I'll post about that later.
For now, just know that this excess muscle tension makes any joint misalignment you may already have - whether from an old injury, poor posture habits or emotions and stress - worse. And it can set you up for injury or reinjury down the road.
An example of static loading is when you mouse for the better part of the day with your arm fully extended out away from you (perhaps because your work tools are too far back.)
One way to start breaking up the tension created by static loading is to be sure your work breaks are movement breaks. Getting up off the chair, walking, exercising are all helpful to interrupt the constant muscle contraction associated with static loading.
3. Repetition
If your job involves a lot of typing, mousing or moving your head from one side to another (so you can interact with multiple monitors, for example,) you may be at risk for repetitive strain injury (RSI.)
RSIs arise from actions you do over and over again, with minimal interruption, during the course of a day. In other words, your job is made up mostly of these actions with scant opportunity to engage with other types of motion, especially, but not limited to, the same body area during the same time frame.
The more you use a body part repeatedly and without interruption, the greater is the risk for pain, discomfort, tissue damage, muscle fatigue and more.
In fact, if an action is repeated 12 times or more in a 5 second period of time, your tendons may be in trouble. This is because they may not be able to fully recover from the activity which can lead to an RSI.
Like static loading, repetition increases the negative effects of awkward posture.
Similarly, using force along with the repeated actions increases the risk of an on-the-job injury. Take this quickie assessment: How hard do you usually strike the keys on your keyboard?
One thing you can do to help prevent or manage an RSI is to keep the mouse and keyboard in line with your elbow. You should be able to easily reach those items without bending your wrist, straightening your elbows or clawing your fingers. Establishing this as a regular habit will likely help minimize overuse of finger and forearm muscles.
Active work breaks, where you get your body and mind away from the computer and get some movement instead, give hard-working muscles a chance to relax - --- a necessity, and not a luxury, for injury-free computer work.
4. Forceful Exertion
How much muscle do you put into mousing and keying?
Even though you may only be working with little buttons (typing) or making small movements with your mouse, you still could be at risk for a forceful-exertion type injury.
In this case, the more you pound and the harder you grasp, the higher is your risk for a forceful-exertion type injury in your wrist, hands or fingers. Symptoms include muscle and ligament strain and fatigue. You might notice some swelling, too.
Graphic designers tend do a lot of mousing all day long. Because of this, people in this profession may be at a higher risk for a forceful-exertion injury. This is especially so if they put their stress in their hands as they work.
If this is the case for you, try to remember to release excess hand tension periodically throughout your day. It only takes a few seconds to gently shake your hands out. The same is true if your job requires near constant typing or data input.
5. Contact Stress
If you don’t know what to do with your forearms or wrists while typing, you may, without realizing it, have resigned yourself to resting them against the edge of the desk and/or laptop.
This convenience may place pressure on skin, muscle, nerves, arteries and/or veins, and, of course, be the cause of discomfort.
Contact stress can affect blood flow and decrease the movement of lymph fluid. (Lymph is the body’s “trash collector” system. It is charged with removing harmful wastes from your tissues.)
Contract stress may also alter the way your nerves work in and around the pressured area, sometimes leading to carpal tunnel syndrome.
While contact stress is listed as an official ergonomic risk factor for injury, for office workers, at least, it’s usually not serious.
To address contact stress at the wrist, you might try a gel pad beneath your keyboard. It should allow for an easy gliding movement of your wrists and forearms during typing.
Otherwise, you might install a keyboard tray under your desk. This effectively lowers the surface of your workstation (the area where you type, at least) and helps create an easy-to-maintain alignment of wrists, hands and fingers.
I like the keyboard tray solution best because not only does it reduce contact stress, it also helps keep neck, shoulders and upper back in the proper ergonomic positions.
How Much Injury Risk does an Office Job Pose?
Combine any of the risk factors mentioned above and deny yourself periodic rest breaks, and you have a recipe for an computer-use related injury.
The good news is about 80% of the time, office-related injuries are preventable and manageable.
Generally, a combination of ideal workstation set up, movement breaks and movement snacks, and developing posture awareness will do the trick. In other words, if you really want to avoid these painful problems, with a bit of effort and attention, you can.
Preventing office-related pain and injury comes down to two things: Habits and ergonomics.
The right posture habits can cultivate support for your body from the inside out; an ergonomic assessment combined with coaching or consulting can help provide support from the outside in. The two make the best combination for comfortable computing.
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