by Antony Hylton –
Back straight, knees bent – Does it make a difference?
Manual handing injuries are common, accounting for around 17% of the 680,000 non-fatal injuries that occurred at work in 2024-25. That’s about 115 000 people. They cause significant time off work, with financial and social consequences, not to mention the psychological distress and impact on family life… so how do we prevent them? Is manual handling training the answer?
The research is sparse and unclear. One systematic review study in 2014, published in the journal Ergonomics, found some benefit in terms of improving people’s knowledge and awareness and observed some reduction of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMDs), in trained versus untrained groups, but not all studies in the review showed this and the difference was not statistically significant.
Training can help people to understand the risks that they face and can help them to understand how the body works and how to best use the body to move loads as safely as possible, with the popular Sumo Squat being the lifting technique du jour, but on the ‘totem pole’ of risk management, it sits towards the bottom, as does any ‘safe’ handling technique. This is because any manual handling has a risk of injury, including the lightest loads; since an injury is not just a result of the load being lifted and the technique that is used, but is often due to many straws (risk factors) that stack atop the proverbial camel’s back. Examples include:
· Individual factors: Fatigue (particularly with shift workers), poor fitness, poor nutrition and stress (work and non-work related)
· Work factors: Lack of equipment (inappropriate, faulty, inaccessible), time constraints (working to deadlines), lack of assistance or management support, poor workplace culture, insufficient rest
· Environmental factors: Cold, heat, poor air quality, poor lighting, limited space
Businesses that have the fewest manual handling injuries take time to look at ways of eliminating manual handling as much as possible, including using mechanisation to minimise risk to workers. Where manual handling can’t be avoided, they carry out detailed risk assessments and devise operating procedures that minimise the risk and which may include mandating team handling and the use of appropriate handling aids.
Having said this, taking responsibility for your own health will also significantly reduce your risk of injury, with exercise being the biggest lever you can pull. A systematic review study in 2011 demonstrated that regular exercise, particularly a combination of strength training and stretching, can reduce the risk of suffering an acute episode of lower back pain by around 30-33%.
So, what does a good manual handling training session look like:
· It should encourage people to think before they act. To carry out dynamic risk assessments taking into account their current state and the factors that may contribute to injury (hazards) and try to address them first.
· It should emphasise the importance of wellness in preventing injury, including the benefits of exercise and tips on what types of exercise to do and how to get started and progress.
· It should demonstrate good lifting technique, using the body in the most efficient way (which varies between individuals) so that they can minimise strain and effort.
· It should include lifting practice, exploring different techniques to see what works best for them and should ideally involve moving loads that they actually move in their job.
· It SHOULD NOT involve watching a video of toddlers with hard hats lifting boxes (if you know, you know), or any other ‘tick box’ video.
We have worked with our clients recently to design training sessions that identify the specific manual handling tasks that their staff face and then looked at ways to explore these tasks in training. This has been positively received. An example of the feedback…
“I found this session informative, useful and open ended. He was willing to listen to what we had to say and adjusted his advice accordingly. It was good having a mix of in class and practical, it was really good to show him how we do tasks and have him give minor adjustments. His thorough understanding of the human body made it very interesting to learn why we over compensate with certain actions and what we can do to improve. I will be going back to the gym after his training and I will definitely be stretching and giving myself needed breaks during tasks”.
