If you do a lot of renovation work, you should be critically aware of the threat of repetitive strain injuries. Repetitive strain injuries range from mild to severe and can affect many different muscles, bones, and tendons in your body. Fortunately, a handful of simple precautions can help you keep repetitive strain injuries to a minimum on your job site.
What Are Repetitive Strain Injuries?
What exactly are repetitive strain injuries?
As the name suggests, these are injuries that occur as a result of a repetitive motion in some part of the body. Our bodies are designed to handle a wide range of different movements, including strenuous ones, but if we engage in the same strenuous movement over and over, it can eventually cause damage to muscles, tendons, ligaments, and other important types of tissue in the affected body parts.
These are some of the most common areas where people receive repetitive strain injuries during renovations:
- Fingers/thumbs
- Wrists
- Elbows
- Arms
- Shoulders
- Knees
You can experience repetitive strain injuries with tasks like flooring, lifting and carrying materials, and even installing countertops. People who experience repetitive strain injuries suffer from a variety of symptoms, including pain, swelling, tingling, numbness, stiffness, weakness, and sensitivity to extreme temperatures.
The severity of these symptoms varies wildly; some people experience only mild symptoms and only for a short amount of time, while other people suffer from debilitating symptoms indefinitely. That said, most repetitive strain injuries are mild – and they go away with proper care in relatively short order.
How to Prevent Repetitive Strain Injuries
These are some of the best strategies for preventing repetitive strain injuries in renovation work:
- Warm up. You’ll be much less susceptible to injury if you properly warm up before engaging in any strenuous activity. Moving around and limbering up before doing something difficult can instantly reduce your chances of experiencing a repetitive strain injury.
- Use proper form. You also should use proper form. If you don’t know the proper form for a given lift, exercise, or technique, consult with an expert or look up videos on the subject. Maintaining good posture and moving your body responsibly can help you avoid many injuries.
- Rotate responsibilities. Repetitive strain injuries require repetition. If your daily work is more varied, your risk of an injury will decrease. It’s therefore in your best interest to rotate responsibilities with other people; switch off to prevent any renovator on your team from doing a single responsibility excessively.
- Take breaks. Similarly, it’s a good idea to take breaks throughout the day. Give your body an opportunity to rest and recover.
- Use protective gear. For some responsibilities, it’s important to wear protective gear. Knee pads, gloves, and other pieces of protective equipment can guard you against certain types of repetitive strain injuries.
- Cool down. Just as you warmed up, it’s important to cool down. When you’re done with a strenuous activity, spend some time cooling your body down with lower intensity movements.
- Stretch. Follow a thorough stretching routine for any body parts you use in physically demanding renovation projects. It can help keep you limber and flexible, thereby reducing certain repetitive strain injuries.
- Allow for plenty of recovery time. After a full day of heavy renovation work, it’s important to allow plenty of recovery time. Consider taking a day off, or at least rotating responsibilities when you return to work.
- Don’t work through the pain. Many athletes and professionals in physically demanding lines of work choose to “play through the pain,” forcing themselves to keep going despite being uncomfortable. This is a bad idea. If you feel pain from repetitive strain, take a break until you see an improvement.
Dealing With Repetitive Strain Injuries
If you do end up with a repetitive strain injury, these are some of the best strategies for promoting healing and coping with the pain.
- RICE. Use the RICE method for mild injuries. This acronym stands for rest, ice, compression, and elevation. Rest is arguably the most important factor for healing, since it allows your body to naturally recover. Ice can numb pain and promote recovery, as can compression, and elevation of the injured area can provide relief and promote blood flow.
- OTC pain medications. To deal with the pain, consider using over-the-counter (OTC) pain medications like ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Always read the labels for medications like these carefully and consider potential interactions.
- Physical therapy. If your pain is more debilitating, consider visiting a doctor. For some people, the best course of action is pursuing physical therapy. Through physical therapy, you can achieve both pain relief and greater flexibility and mobility in the affected area.
Repetitive strain injuries aren’t fun, and in some cases, they can be downright debilitating. That’s why it’s so important to remain aware of these types of injuries and do everything you can to prevent them.