So you finish college and are lucky to land a job in a call center. In no time you are spending hours working on your computer, tied to your desk. Soon you start to notice stiffness and slight pain in one side of your neck, then your upper back/shoulder blade area starts to ache and finally you have tingling pain down your arm!

You say to yourself: ‘I am a young guy, how can I have these aches and pains?’ But, what you are experiencing is not unique or unusual. It’s called the Mouse Neck/ Shoulder and is also known as the Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).

Repetitive Strain Injury or repetitive motion injury is mostly a work-related musculoskeletal disorder. It can affect muscles, tendons, joints and nerves. Generally, RSI is caused by improperly-designed workstations, incorrect posture and inadequate fitness.

Repetitive injury results in repeated tissue micro-trauma, which disrupts the normal repair process, leading to reduced blood supply, reduced activity of nerves, muscle fiber loss and even cell death. Some individuals with RSI have severe pain, others just lose strength and fine muscle control.

How a niggle becomes a literal pain in the neck!

Hours of sitting and working on badly-designed workstations, then spending leisure time peering at a mobile screen and finally sleeping on a misshapen pillow often results in a stiff neck and/or a mild headache. If ignored, this can get worse and disrupt everyday activities. Soon you will be popping painkillers to get through the day, but the pain will seem to only get worse over time.

Finding the cause

Look at your workstation. Is the computer screen at eye-level? Is your wrist bent backwards while using the mouse? Does your desk make you shrug your shoulders up? While typing, do your elbows hang free? If your answer is yes to these questions, then it’s time to make changes to your workstation.

(Ensure that your computer screen should be at eye level (Illustration : Sunil Kumar Mallik ))

Here’s a workstation checklist to keep RSI at bay:

1.The computer screen should be at eye-level.

2.Your wrist should be straight.

3.Your shoulders should not be shrugged up while sitting.

4.And finally, the chair should support the elbows.

The cure: stretch and strengthen

1.Stretch your neck by touching your chin to the chest and then look straight up at the ceiling. Turn your head left and then right. Do these stretches 10 times each.

2.Get up from your desk every half an hour, walk a few steps.

3.Strengthen your neck by pushing it backwards towards your chin with your fingers in such a way as to form a double chin. Hold this position for 10 seconds. Do this three to four times in a day.

(Chin tuck exercises also helps relieve pain (Illustration : Sunil Kumar Mallik ))

 

Author bio: Kamal Singh CSCS is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with a coaching experience of 15 years. He specialises in post rehabilitation training and has worked with some of the biggest names in the corporate and sports world. Kamal was picked by Men’s Health magazine as one of India’s Top personal trainers.

courtesy : hindustantimes.com



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Mumbai (PTI): The Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to consultant Chetan Patil arrested in connection with the collapse of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj''s statue at Rajkot fort in Malvan in August.

A 35-foot statue of the iconic Maratha warrior king collapsed in Sindhudurg district on August 26, nearly nine months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled it on Navy Day.

Patil was arrested on August 30 from Kolhapur.

A single bench of Justice A S Kilor on Thursday held that no case was made out to implicate Patil in the case as he had not been appointed as the structural designer of the statue.

The bench further said Patil had only submitted a structural stability report of the pedestal of the statue and the pedestal was intact even after the collapse.

Another accused, Jaydeep Apte, who was the sculptor and contractor, was also arrested in the case. The HC said it would hear his bail plea on November 25.

The Sindhudurg police had registered an FIR under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for negligence and other offences last month against Apte and Patil for the statue's collapse.

Patil and Apte moved HC seeking bail after a sessions court rejected their pleas.