Ergonomics Plus is a company with the simple mission of helping workplace athletes lead healthy and productive lives. We want to improve the quality of life of working people everywhere, and we partner with companies that share that vision.
By “workplace athletes” we just mean people. People who use their physical skills and abilities to earn a living. To put it into context, this usually means people who work in a manufacturing or distribution environment, where the nature of the job is physically demanding. It’s work that, like a sporting event, leaves the athlete fatigued when they go home to recover each day.
So how do we accomplish our mission of helping workplace athletes lead healthy and productive lives?
Our services integrate an athletic trainer directly into the workplace just like virtually all sports teams integrate an athletic trainer into the team’s operations to keep the athletes healthy and on the field.
During the time our athletic trainers spend on-site at client facilities, they have two primary objectives:
- Ergonomics: reduce fatigue and discomfort by making changes to the work environment through a systematic ergonomics improvement process.
- Plus: reduce fatigue and discomfort by implementing a “Workplace Athlete” program with elements including a Work Readiness System (warm-up stretching program), early recognition and intervention of fatigue and discomfort, and group and one-on-one training on a variety of topics.
By reducing ergonomic risk factors and engaging workplace athletes in a strong preventative healthcare model, athletic trainers provide a versatile resource for health and safety teams. This unique expertise (combined with a strong systems approach) is often more practical than a wellness coaching model and more effective than ergonomics as a standalone program.
While more and more companies are recognizing the value of athletic trainers in their workplace, there is still much work to be done to educate the rest of the occupational health and safety world. The goal of this new series of articles on workplace athletic trainers is to shed some light on what just might be the best kept secret in the safety industry.
What is an Athletic Trainer?
According to the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA):
Athletic Trainers (ATs) are health care professionals who collaborate with physicians to provide preventative services, emergency care, clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions.
The NATA describes it in more simple terms in their tagline, “health care for life and sport”. (If we were picky, we’d like to add “work” into that tagline, but “life” generally covers it, so we’ll let it slide.)
The traditional setting for athletic trainers is in the sports world, where they work with athletes to keep them healthy, productive and on the field. They also work with injured athletes to bring them back into playing condition, among other things.
The setting we’re passionate about at Ergonomics Plus is the workplace setting. Our athletic trainers help workplace athletes stay healthy, productive and on the job.
What Athletic Trainers are not
We often run into some confusion when we talk to people who are new to the athletic training profession. The “trainer” part of athletic trainer is sometimes confused with a “personal trainer” or a “physical therapist”. Before we go any further on what athletic trainers are and what their value is in the workplace, we should clarify this for you:
To be clear, athletic trainers are not personal trainers or physical therapists. These are all very different practices, each with their own merits.
Athletic trainers are not personal trainers: A personal trainer develops, monitors and changes an individual’s specific exercise program to improve their personal fitness level. They are the ones you would typically see at the gym coaching a client or a group fitness class through a workout.
Athletic trainers are not physical therapists: Physical therapists help injured or ill people improve their movement and manage their pain after an injury has occurred. They are the ones you would visit during your rehabilitation process to recover from an injury, surgery, etc.
The takeaway: Athletic trainers, personal trainers and physical therapists are different types of health professionals. The thing to remember about athletic trainers is that they are allied healthcare professionals with unique expertise in the prevention of injuries and optimizing human performance. This makes them uniquely positioned to add value in the workplace as injury prevention specialists.
Athletic trainer expertise and skillset
The NATA Clinical/Industrial/Corporate Athletic Trainers’ Committee has put together a comprehensive analysis of how the services and programs athletic trainers provide in the occupational setting relate to the domains of athletic training.
Here is an overview:
Ergonomics: Certified athletic trainers work in occupational companies to identify ergonomic stressors and then can assist in recommending and implementing both engineering and administrative controls. Along with developing control measures, athletic trainers can also provide specific workplace ergonomic training and education. Similar to analyzing the mechanics of an athlete, such as the throwing motion of a pitcher, the knowledge a certified athletic trainer has in biomechanics are valuable skills used to analyze a workstation for potential ergonomic risk factors.
Job Analysis: The goal of the job analysis is to provide detailed information that can create an environment that enhances human productivity and human well being. The primary purpose of the analysis is to identify the root cause of work-related problems that may contribute to musculoskeletal disorders (Albensi, 2002). The athletic trainer’s education in human factors and biomechanics makes the athletic trainer a valuable professional when identifying potential musculoskeletal disorder risk factors through a job analysis.
Wellness: The education and knowledge of a certified athletic trainer make him/her a valuable asset in a wellness program. Along with encouraging and developing healthy lifestyles, the certified athletic trainer can manage fitness, stress management, and smoking cessation programs. The certified athletic trainer can also manage company sports leagues, run incentive programs and obtain guest speakers to present on a wide array of topics.
Nutrition: It has been shown that obesity and insufficient vitamin levels are directly related to musculoskeletal disorders (North Carolina Division of Occupational Safety and Health) and that nutrition is an important component of injury prevention (Arnheim, 1993). Furthermore, being overweight costs over $70 billion a year in unnecessary health care expenses (Ficca and Streator, 2002). The certified athletic trainer can provide valuable information on numerous issues related to nutrition, such as the dietary guidelines established by the US Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services. Additional nutrition education can be provided on weight loss and gain, dietary supplements and fad diets.
Physical Readiness: Just as certified athletic trainers have been developing conditioning programs for athletes and athletic teams for years, athletic trainers are now applying these same principles to develop programs for occupational athletes. Using the principles of conditioning (warm-up, overload, consistency, specificity, progress, intensity, individuality, and safety) the athletic trainer is a qualified health care professional to develop physical readiness programs for individuals or entire departments.
Safety: The athletic trainer can serve as a valuable member in a safety department. The diverse skills of the certified athletic trainer provides a solid foundation for working with safety issues. For example, the athletic trainer could manage lockout-tagout, hearing protection and machine guarding programs.
Injury Prevention: From their beginning, certified athletic trainers have always focused on injury prevention and patient education. By using the same principles applied to athletes, the certified athletic trainer can develop and manage effective injury prevention programs. The occupational athletic trainer can create and implement a variety of injury prevention programs, such as lifting schools, stretching programs, pre-shift exercises, musculoskeletal disorders recognition and intervention, and injury prevention presentations.
Case Management: Certified athletic trainers are a natural fit to provide case management services as the emphasis is on early detection and intervention in the management of work injuries. The athletic trainer can be a valuable case manager by facilitating on-going communication between employer, physician, rehabilitation providers, insurance and the employee. Additionally, the certified athletic trainer can serve to support the injured employee, monitor medical care, promote efficient reporting and investigation, and assist in finding light-duty work available within physician restrictions (Wickman, 2002).
Employee Advocate: Serving as an employee advocate may be one of the most important roles an athletic trainer can serve in the occupational setting. Employees trust the certified athletic trainer, and this can be beneficial as the ATC serves a liaison between the employee and management. Also, the certified athletic trainer may provide education to management on an employee’s injury and recovery time, thereby assisting in easing pressure on the employee to return to work.
Physician Extender: As musculoskeletal injuries become a larger percentage of all occupationally induced injuries and illnesses, many physicians recognize the benefits of the ATC’s expertise in managing these cases. In the role of physician extender the ATC can employ the skill, knowledge and abilities in managing these conditions earlier in the injury cycle. In the physician extender role, the barrier of “referring to therapy” is brought down to the benefit of all involved.
On-Site Rehabilitation: As health care costs continue to escalate, companies will need to find alternatives to effectively manage injuries. Working under the direction of a physician, athletic trainers are effective health care professionals to provide physical rehabilitation services on-site. The rehabilitation skills of a certified athletic trainer provides numerous benefits for treating injuries on-site, such as no co-pays for employees, avoidance of high health care costs at outside rehabilitation facilities, and no wage loss traveling to and from a facility or
sitting in the waiting room. Also, by treating workers like occupational athletes and using aggressive rehabilitation methods honed on athletes that has traditionally been a strong point of sports medicine, businesses can save money because workers will return to work faster (White, 1996).
Return to Work: According to an article in Occupational Health and Safety, an early return to work program is the one single practice that can bring the greatest reduction in direct costs for worker’s compensation programs (Kaplan and Smith, 2000). The skills of a certified athletic trainer in returning athletes to play are precisely the same skills required to return employees to work. There are multiple forms of return to work programs; however, consistent aspects of any return to work program consists of stretching, strengthening, and job simulation (Gatz, 2002). The knowledge and diversity of the athletic trainer in these areas make them attractive health care professionals to implement, manage and conduct return to work programs.
Stay tuned …
This is the first in a five-part series on athletic trainers in the workplace. Make sure you’re signed up for free updates so you don’t miss out on the coming posts in the series.
