Mining has made enormous progress in reducing manual handling risks, but Guy Onley from The Onsite Coach believes maintaining physical capability deserves equal attention.
We’ve all seen it. The A-grade, hard-running second rower who starts out in mining, keen to get his hands dirty, but years later is carrying sore knees, an aching shoulder and counting down the days to retirement.
Yet over in Bali there’s an old timer still squatting in a rice paddy and moving like a gazelle in their 60s and 70s.
Your job doesn’t have to take away the best years of your life. In fact, it can make them even better if you maintain your mobility.
In our western society we’re missing a lot of the movement previous generations had by default, just to exist and put food on the table. Food is delivered to the door, stairs are replaced by escalators and transport carries us where we might once have walked or ridden a bike.
Onsite, add a bunch of mechanical aids and you miss a lot of the movement the body thrives on and needs to be nourished and lubricated.
Don’t get it twisted, we need mechanical aids, processes and procedures to get work done safely and move loads efficiently. We’ve done a great job reducing risk.
The challenge is making sure we replace some of that lost movement elsewhere.
The body is constantly adapting to the environment it exists in, positively or negatively. If we’re removing movement, we need to replace that movement with simple bodyweight resistance work and other activities that build resilience in joints and muscles.
Many workers have seen the results firsthand. Someone who was once active and agile can gradually lose mobility through their ankles, knees and hips after years of performing the same movements or spending long periods working in limited positions.
I’ve seen people work at bench height for 30-plus years with very little flexion left in their ankles, knees or hips. Anything below parallel becomes an effort. Sitting down and getting back up starts to become a battle because the body has found a new default position.
Compliance ticks the box. Capability keeps the body in the game.
Manual handling discussions often focus on posture and ergonomics, and rightly so. But manual handling isn’t just posture and ergonomics, it’s also biomechanics and recovery.
The body only knows repetition. It doesn’t care whether it’s in the gym or on site; both take a toll. You can lift perfectly and still be taxed, and without recovery that compounds over days, weeks, months and years until something eventually gives way.
Recovery is often the missing piece. Fatigue accumulates slowly and the effects aren’t always obvious until everyday activities start becoming harder than they should be.
Nothing is worse than hearing from a hard-working miner who is finally retiring but can’t enjoy the caravan, the boat or the toys they’ve worked so hard for. Worse still is hearing they can’t play with the grandkids because the job took more out of them than it should have.
There is a better way, and it doesn’t have to cost production time.
Mining has made enormous progress in reducing manual handling risks. The next challenge is making sure workers maintain the strength, mobility and resilience needed to enjoy the years that follow.
The goal shouldn’t simply be getting to retirement. It should be getting there with a body that’s still capable of doing the things you enjoy.
| To find out more or if you would like a free guide to Guy’s 3 Steps to Injury Prevention for your site head to www.theonsitecoach.com |
