Our Approach to Teaching Ergonomics

At Matheson, we approach ergonomics through the lens of work, musculoskeletal exposure, human function, injury risk, and performance. Many of the professionals who come through our training are physical therapists, occupational therapists, athletic trainers, or other occupational health professionals. They often bring with them a strong foundation in anatomy, movement, biomechanics, injury, rehabilitation, and functional performance.

Our role is to help them build ergonomics expertise on top of that foundation.

That background can add another layer to how workplace demands are interpreted. We are not simply asking whether a posture is awkward or whether a lift exceeds a certain threshold. We are asking what the job is requiring from the human body, how often those demands occur, how much force is involved, how long the exposure lasts, how much recovery is available, and how those factors interact across the workday.

The goal is not simply to identify risk. It is to understand the work well enough to determine what can realistically be changed.

Understanding the Work Comes First

Before making an ergonomic recommendation, we need to understand what the job actually requires.

That means looking beyond a single task or a single snapshot in time. We want to know how much someone lifts, how frequently they lift it, how far they reach, how much force they use, what positions they maintain, how often the work changes, and what opportunities they have to recover. We also need to understand how the task is actually performed, not simply how it is described in a job description or procedure.

This is where observation becomes especially important. Two jobs may look similar on paper but create very different demands once you watch someone perform them. A lift that appears reasonable may become more demanding when it is repeated every minute for several hours. A reach that seems minor may become more significant when it is combined with force, repetition, and limited recovery. A grip requirement may change considerably depending on the tool, posture, duration, and opportunity to reposition.

At Matheson, we teach people to look at these exposures together. Force, repetition, frequency, posture, duration, and recovery all influence one another. The real skill is not simply measuring each factor independently. It is understanding how they combine to create the overall demand of the job.

Connecting Work Demands to the Musculoskeletal System

A healthcare or rehabilitation background can also influence how workplace exposure is interpreted.

A lift is not simply a number. A reach is not simply an angle. Repeated gripping is not simply a frequency count. Each of those demands is being managed by a human body, and that means thinking about the tissues, joints, muscles, movement patterns, and physical capacities involved.

If someone is working overhead, for example, we are not only documenting shoulder position. We are thinking about how frequently the task occurs, how much force is required, how long the shoulder remains elevated, whether the worker can vary the task, and whether there are opportunities for recovery. We are also thinking about whether the work could be reorganized, lowered, brought closer, rotated, or otherwise modified to reduce unnecessary exposure.

That same thinking applies to lifting, pushing, pulling, carrying, gripping, kneeling, reaching, twisting, or prolonged positioning. The purpose is to connect what is happening in the workplace with an understanding of human movement, physical demands, and musculoskeletal function.

Connecting Job Demands With Human Performance

Another important part of the Matheson perspective is that many of the professionals we train also spend a significant amount of time evaluating the people who perform these jobs.

They may conduct functional capacity evaluations, post-offer employment testing, work conditioning evaluations, job-specific physical testing, return-to-work assessments, or other forms of functional testing after injury. Many are also directly involved in treating and rehabilitating injured workers.

That experience can shape how job demands are understood.

If you spend your career evaluating whether someone can return to a job that requires repeated lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, reaching, or sustained positioning, you develop a practical understanding of what those demands mean at the individual level. Strength matters, but so do endurance, frequency, recovery, movement quality, and the ability to sustain performance over time.

The ability to tolerate a task once is not necessarily the same as being able to perform it repeatedly throughout a workday.

You also see what happens when capacity changes.

An injured worker may still be able to lift a certain weight but no longer tolerate the frequency required by the job. Another worker may regain strength but continue to struggle with sustained positioning or repetition. Someone else may perform well during a brief test but not yet have the endurance required for a full shift.

Those experiences can add useful context when evaluating the work itself and considering how job demands may be reduced, modified, or better understood.

Ergonomics Is Part of a Larger Occupational Health Continuum

We do not view ergonomics as an isolated service. It can be part of a much larger occupational health process.

A job demands analysis helps define what the work actually requires. That information may then be used to build a post-offer employment test, guide rehabilitation, develop a work conditioning program, compare an individual's functional abilities with job requirements, or support return-to-work planning.

Ergonomics fits into that same continuum because it asks another important question: can the work itself be improved?

When a job is associated with repeated musculoskeletal complaints, treatment alone may not address the underlying work exposures. At the same time, any recommendation to modify the work should be grounded in an understanding of what the job still needs to accomplish.

The pieces can inform one another.

Job demands help guide testing. Testing helps guide rehabilitation. Rehabilitation helps prepare someone for return to work. Ergonomic analysis helps determine whether exposure can be reduced or the work can be designed more effectively.

When these services are connected, occupational health programs can become more coordinated and more useful.

Assessment Is Only the Beginning

One of the principles we emphasize is that completing an ergonomic assessment is not the final outcome.

A risk score may help identify a concern. A checklist may help organize observations. A validated tool may help quantify exposure. Those things are valuable, but they are only part of the process.

The real work begins after a problem has been identified.

What can actually be changed? Will the recommendation fit within the workflow? Will it interfere with quality or production? Can employees use it consistently? Will the change reduce the exposure that was identified, or will it create a new issue somewhere else?

A good ergonomic recommendation has to work in the real world.

Sometimes that means a significant engineering change. Other times the most effective solution may be relatively simple: changing the height of a work surface, reducing a reach distance, repositioning materials, changing the orientation of a task, modifying the frequency of exposure, or creating better opportunities for recovery.

The goal is not to produce the most sophisticated recommendation. The goal is to develop a practical solution that meaningfully improves the work while preserving what the job needs to accomplish.

Tools Support Judgment

Matheson-trained professionals learn to use a variety of ergonomic assessment methods and risk tools. Those tools are important because they create structure, improve consistency, and help quantify aspects of exposure.

But no single tool tells the entire story.

A score cannot replace observation. A checklist cannot replace understanding the job. A risk category cannot tell you whether a recommendation will actually work in a particular environment.

The strongest ergonomic evaluations bring multiple sources of information together. That may include measurements, worker observations, job demands, injury trends, validated assessment tools, worker feedback, operational constraints, and the evaluator's understanding of human function and workplace demands.

The purpose of the tools is to support better decisions, not to become the decision themselves.

Follow-Up Is Part of the Work

Ergonomic recommendations should not disappear into a report.

Once a change has been made, we need to know whether it actually worked. Was it implemented the way it was intended? Are workers using it? Did it reduce the exposure we were concerned about? Did it create a new problem somewhere else? Does the solution need to be adjusted?

That is why ergonomics is often an iterative process. We observe, measure, understand, make a change, and then go back and reassess.

That follow-up is also what allows a workplace to move beyond one-time assessments and begin building a more mature ergonomics program.

Looking Beyond the Individual Assessment

Ergonomics becomes even more useful when it is connected with broader workplace information.

Where are musculoskeletal injuries occurring? Which departments or job tasks produce repeated complaints? Are the same body regions appearing again and again? Are certain jobs generating a disproportionate amount of early intervention activity, workers' compensation claims, modified duty, or rehabilitation?

Those patterns can help organizations decide where to focus their efforts.

Instead of waiting for one injured worker or one workstation concern at a time, organizations can begin identifying broader areas of exposure and addressing them more proactively. Ergonomic evaluation can then become part of a larger injury prevention and occupational health strategy rather than a stand-alone event.

The Goal Is Better Work

Ultimately, the Matheson approach to ergonomics is not about identifying bad posture or producing another assessment report.

It is about understanding the relationship between the worker, the work, the exposure, and human performance.

We want professionals to understand what the job truly requires, recognize where unnecessary musculoskeletal exposure may exist, and develop practical changes that make the work better. We also want them to understand how those decisions can connect with injury, rehabilitation, functional testing, and return to work.

That is why our approach goes beyond simply identifying risk.

We want people to understand the work well enough to improve it.