What Is Ergonomic Movement?

The term 'ergonomic' is a label that applies to the study of the workplace environment for efficiency, safety and productivity.

People who study this area usually have a professional background in ergonomics and apply their own understanding to the employment environment through their knowledge in ergonomics.

However, the working environment is not exclusively the employment domain; because many people now use their employment skills in the home environment, since the advent of computers in the home.

Ergonomics should therefore have broader links in usage, because the workplace environment is now more than ever used in the home environment. Movement should never be exclusively defined for any specific environmental purpose, except perhaps in the paid employment environment.

There are many ergonomic working environments, but the one of interest to me is the home environment; as this is still a 'working environment' because 'ergo' is Latin for 'work' and we all do much of this at home.

My expertise in ergonomics has developed through my academic knowledge and skills as an Occupational Therapist, plus further academic studies into Health Promotion and quality of life to a PhD research level.

So when I describe an 'ergonomic movement', these are productive movements used to perform daily living activities on a daily basis. In other words, we are using our muscles, joints and tissues for the purpose of safe movement and correct alignment for any changed positions of our body for the purpose of efficiency, safety and productivity.

What it means is that if we make one move to our body, it will affect and make changes to the rest of our body; so that you we remain balanced and safe in an upright position.

Fortunately, we do not have to think about this ourselves, as our body will automatically create the changes, without us having to think about them. Everything is automatically programmed through our autonomic nerve supply. The goal is to maintain our balance in an upright position for safety.

Ergonomic movement is therefore clearly aimed with three objectives: efficiency, safety and productivity. It maintains our balance while we more around in every day performance.

We live in a purposeful society, where most actions are completed for a purpose. Daily living movements are all ergonomic movements, because they purposefully meet our daily needs for quality of life.

However, if your weight has changed by over 5-10 pounds, then you need to read more; because your ergonomic movements are no longer the same and your body continues to move in accordance to your original weight.

When people change from their normal ideal weight to being overweight; an adjustment needs to be made to the way they move, or their skeletal joints will move incorrectly according to their weight gain.

This is the law of physics that if you are moving extra weight, your skeletal balance has to change for efficiency, safety and productivity of movement.

Your autonomic nervous system cannot take into account your weight change, so you may still be moving your skeletal joints from your original weight.

This will be the reason that you are suffering pain in one or more skeletal joints. The answer is to find your new ergonomic balance, as your movements need to change, in order to be comfortable again.