Industrial Athletes with Al Brown and Clayton Cartwright

Workers today face many physical challenges, from a demanding
pace to heavy loads and static postures.  While the demands
may not be at the same level as a professional athlete, a certain
level of fitness and preparation is necessary for any worker to
stay healthy or recover if an injury does occur. 


Athletes at all levels benefit from functional movement training
and proactive prevention that comes from the athletic training
model.  If work can be thought of as an athletic process and
the worker as an industrial athlete, then workplace safety can
benefit as well.  


On this episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, I speak with
Al Brown, MEMIC’s Director of Ergonomics and Clayton Cartwright,
Safety Management Consultant about the Industrial Athlete and how
the athletic training model can be used to maintain and improve
worker health and safety.


 


Peter Koch: [00:00:04] Hello, listeners, and
welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, I'm your host, Peter
Koch. So in the world of workers, there has been a long history
of people doing physical jobs, non-physical jobs and also
injuries over time, we've seen people get` injured doing really
anything. It could be sitting at a desk. It could be doing a lot
of manual material handling. It could be working in a foundry. It
can be working in a construction space. It could be working in
the retail area or hospitality or health care. So injuries happen
across the board. And also, as we're starting to look at our
workers, they're doing a lot of physical things, but they're
sometimes those physical things aren't so obvious. So when we
look at physical things, we might look at our athletic areas and
our sports teams, whether it be a high school sports team, a
college sports team or a professional sports team. And we see
injuries there as well. We almost [00:01:00] expect an injury
once in a while from those athletes because of the work, quote
unquote, that they're doing. But we want to connect those two
things together, because if we can see our workers as an athlete,
we may actually be able to help them manage not only the load
that they have to deal with on a regular basis, but also if they
do get injured, to look at them as an athlete and treat them as
we might treat an athlete as well. Well, on the line with me
today is Al Brown P.T and MEMIC’s director of ergonomics and
Clayton Cartwright P.T and safety management consultant here with
MEMIC Al and Clayton. Great to have you on the podcast today.


Al Brown: [00:01:39] It's great to be here,
Pete, thanks.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:01:41] Thanks, Pete.
Thanks for having me.


Peter Koch: [00:01:42] Fantastic. So it's great
to have you both on today. And before we get started, let's get
to know you a little bit better and tell our listeners a little
bit about yourselves. So Al, you've been on the podcast before
and let's start with you. Tell me about how you came to be
interested in the worker as an industrial athlete.


Al Brown: [00:01:58] Thanks, Pete. Yeah,
actually, [00:02:00] I started my life out as an athletic
trainer. I was a graduate of Penn State University and got to
interact with a lot of their athletes, the football team and the
soccer team, and then went on to be an athletic trainer, junior
out of college in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. And then from there
was actually where I got to work with a professional team, the
Los Angeles Dodgers, down in Vero Beach, and then from there on
to physical therapy school and became a physical therapist and
from that foundation of an athletic trainer and then becoming a
physical therapist and working in the orthopedic world, working
in worker's comp, began to make sense to me how I used to deal
with the athletes in those settings and how I was dealing with
injured workers in these new settings. So it made sense to me. It
all kind of came together and it has been part of my philosophy
since my beginnings [00:03:00] in this world.


Peter Koch: [00:03:01] I didn't realize that you
had done some work as an athletic trainer with sports teams
before. I've known most of your history, but that's a nugget that
I really didn't know before today. So thanks for sharing that.


Al Brown: [00:03:14] I'm older than you think,
Pete. You know, I'm older than dirt, so I've been doing a lot of
things, but I only disclose dribbles of it every so often, you
know,


Peter Koch: [00:03:24] Teases out with it.
That's OK.


Al Brown: [00:03:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.


Peter Koch: [00:03:28] All right, Clayton. So
this is your first time on the podcast, and you're somewhat new
to MEMIC as well, but you've had a ton of experience working with
athletes before you came to MEMIC. So tell us about your
experience and how you came to see the worker as an industrial
athlete.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:03:43] Sure. So, you
know, very similar to Al is my undergraduate studies were in the
athletic training world and I went to the University of
Pittsburgh, where, again, we worked with a lot of the sports
teams and just so happened that our [00:04:00] university had a
contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers. And I was able to, you
know, fortunately enough for me, was able to land that position
and did a season long internship with them that year. Amazing
experience. And, you know, from there, it was kind of the same
path. I went to P.T school, took that information that I had
gathered as an athletic trainer. And then when I graduated P.T
school and got into the orthopedic world, similar to Al, you
know, I started making those comparisons to the, you know,
worker's comp patients that I was treating, what they were going
through, what types of settings they were in, and really
comparing that to the athletes that I was seeing or had seen, you
know, as an athletic training student. So very similar to Al. And
again, it just kind of all made sense and put the puzzle pieces
together, so to speak.


Peter Koch: [00:04:54] Yeah, that's cool. And I
think it's a really interesting path to take. And obviously, I've
never [00:05:00] been an athletic trainer. I'm not a physical
therapist. Played sports all my life and that that experience
actually, as far as I got to look at injured workers before I
came to MEMIC as a risk manager or as a patroller, as I would
respond to injured workers at the ski area, it was interesting
for me to bring in that experience as an athlete and look at some
of those injuries, whether they be coming from the Hill as a ski
instructor or maybe a lift mechanic or a lift operator, or I
would see them in the office or someplace else in the
hospitality. So let's break that open a little bit more about why
we want to look at the worker as an industrial athlete. So let's
talk a little bit about that. And why is it why is it good to be
able to see them as it industrial athletes and make some
connections to athletics and some of the work that gets done out
[00:06:00] there in the field?


Clayton Cartwright: [00:06:01] Sure. So I think,
you know, when we look at them separately, you tend to see a lot
of similar movement patterns. You know, they're doing repetitive
type motions. You know, the stresses that they put on their body
can be very similar in that regard. So, again, it's that
comparison between even though we look at it differently, I think
it's a good comparison to make when you're looking at them
together like that. And one of our conversations we had had
where, you know, there's so many different sports, but there's
also so many different careers and job paths. And so that's where
we really can make a connection as well. You know, sports have
their own unique injuries per sport, sort of sports specific, you
know, and you kind of look at that as a job site, job specific or
site specific injuries. So, you know, there's a lot of
similarities between the workforce and that sports athletic
[00:07:00] population.


Peter Koch: [00:07:01] That's cool. So can you
maybe break it down a little bit more? Like is there an example
that we can use maybe a factory worker or someone who is a
package handler and maybe another sports analogy that we can make
those two connections and see how those moving patterns might be
similar, you know, and also how those moving patterns may create
an injury as well.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:07:28] Yeah. So, you
know, let's take, for example, maybe a swimmer, a swimmer is a
lot of overhead movement patterns, you know, and then they have
to do kick turns. And depending on how they've been coached, they
may kick turn in the same direction the same time, or they maybe
have the ability to switch. That's a different conversation. But,
you know, then we can maybe take somebody that you wouldn't think
would be an athlete, maybe like a mail delivery, you know, person
who's driving. You know, they are maybe constantly reaching or
turning to the left [00:08:00] to open a mailbox. So they're
constantly pulling open a door. And it's just that repeated
motion day in, day out for, you know, eight hours a day. So
you're just seeing those repeated motions that are in a certain
movement pattern. And that's where we get those repetitive stress
sort of injuries that we tend to see with repeated motions like
that.


Peter Koch: [00:08:22] Yeah, again, really
interesting. And I like that analogy of the swimmer, because it
is I mean, if you think about if I'm doing a five hundred or if
I'm doing a one hundred or whatever that is and I'm doing the
backstroke. Kraul Butterfly doesn't matter what it is, the
repetitious nature of the shoulder circle that has to happen is
just constant. And then the forces placed on that. But it's
different, too, because as a professional swimmer or even as a
college level swimmer or high school, you're going to have a
coach that helps to work you through some of those processes. And
they understand the warm up and they understand the stretching
and they understand good movement [00:09:00] patterns. And they
understand that when you start to do these things, that you could
be on the cusp of an injury. So they're going to adjust for you,
but the worker in industry doesn't have that. And so I think if
we if we start to look at the worker a little more as an athlete.
Maybe we can adjust how they will approach their own job and
maybe how they or as a supervisor or a manager may be able to
make that connection so that we can stem off an injury, whether
it be by job change or by a behavior change. So one of those two
things. So neat connection there, Clayton, neat connection. And
I'm going to throw this out to both of you and maybe, Al, you
have something in there as well. Can you, is there any statistics
at all that are out there that that talk about companies that
have done some studies around the work patterns that have
happened and maybe things that they've [00:10:00] done to be
successful in changing patterns, much like a coach would change
if they're looking at their team or their athletes individually?


Al Brown: [00:10:10] It's interesting. I see
three types of injury or three kinds of injuries. You see the
trauma and we have trauma in the workforce. You know, the
sprained ankle, sprained ankle. In sports, you have the overuse
which you guys were talking about, which is a biomechanical
repeated activity, which we will see that. And then you have sort
of the fatigue kind of injuries, those things that occur, the,
you know, the end of the day or at the end of the game or, you
know, when someone's really starting to get tuckered out. So
there is those parallels that you see. One of the downsides is
with the athlete or one of the upsides to the athlete. It's sort
of a natural selection process. And as those skill levels in
those athletic levels continue to proceed towards professional,
they bring [00:11:00] some genetics along with them and they also
bring a team of people that keep them healthy. Unfortunately, in
the workforce, we don't always have that and we certainly don't
have that team that sort of follows them along. And I think
industry's beginning to discover the value of that, that we need
to look at those.


Al Brown: [00:11:20] And to your question about
have industries looked at that, I think there was a study done by
UPS and it was in Northern California. You can look it up online.
It was around 2005. And they had one of their they have five or
50 districts. And there was one district there that was the worst
in terms of injuries, injury rate, frequency, severity. And so
they took it upon themselves to focus a sports medicine model in
that region, which included stretching, strengthening, awareness,
education. And [00:12:00] within two years, they went from being
fiftieth in the region, the worst to number one. And it was
simply by changing those behaviors and changing the focus of care
to more of a sort of athletic training model. It's, you know,
let's be right there. Let's look at the root cause. Let's try to
figure out the biomechanics of some of the problems and solve
those, but then also incorporate the stretching, the
strengthening, the balance, the core strength, those kinds of
things so that you made a better industrial athlete. Cool study.


Peter Koch: [00:12:38] Yeah, cool. And that's
interesting. Just by utilizing that athletic training viewpoint
in in how they're making changes or how they're viewing the
worker and the tasks that they're doing, you can make a big
change. And I think we're going to get into that. I know we're
going to get into that a little bit more in the podcast as we
start talking about some of the things that they did in and how
[00:13:00] they actually implemented that athletic training
model. But Clayton, maybe I can have you explore this a little
bit more to about what that athletic training model kind of is.
And talk a little bit about your experience with the sports teams
and how you brought that into your PT career and what that
athletic training treatment model might be when you're working
with an athlete.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:13:24] Yes, so, you
know, just based off of, again, my experiences as a clinician and
going through the athletic training to the party, know then
eventually into some fitness stuff that I really enjoy doing. You
know, I kind of break it into sort of three parts. Right. So that
athletic training model is really that observational piece where
you're there on the sideline, you're watching games, you're
watching practice. And if you see an athlete go down, you've
observed that injury. And just through education, you know, you
can start to put it together, you [00:14:00] know, of maybe some
of the injuries that could have happened for that. You know, I
you know, I'm a big football fan. So sitting on the couch
watching football, you know, if I see something, I see a play or
player go down. I've done it so many times with my wife, I'll say
I bet you that's an actor. Next thing you know, ACL tear. So, you
know, it's just that observational piece. You kind of learn it
through observation and education. And then, you know, going to
the PT side is more of that treatment aspect, getting into the
treatment side of it. So back to your question. As far as the
athletic training approach, it's really being able to identify it
early and get that early intervention that is so, so crucial. You
know, and there is a lot of research out there to support that
early intervention helps with long term outcomes. And again, I
think this is something that we're going to dive into a little
bit more during the podcast. But, you [00:15:00] know, that's
kind of where I see that athletic training model fitting in to
that to the workforce. Early intervention, you know, address it
as soon as you can.


Al Brown: [00:15:11] Yeah. You know, it was
funny because I have to laugh. Funny little story. I love
football, too, so it's great. Same thing. You sit there, you
watch, you observe. You know what we were talking about different
types of jobs. And one year at Penn State, it was my job to cover
the state final cross-country meet on the golf course, which goes
around the perimeter of the golf course. And they said, oh, so
you're thinking what could happen here? I had more athletes go
down during that event, couldn't observe them, but it was we need
an athletic trainer over at mile two we have someone that's down.
You know, we got someone down over one mile one. I probably put
in as many miles that day, the cross-country athletes. But again,
I had to speculate. It was more [00:16:00] hyperventilating. It
was those types of things or was an Achilles injury. So I didn't
get to observe. But again, in your mind, my first perception was
not going to be much going on here. And then it was like, I have
a whole new respect for that type of thing. So the athletic
training model came in many different shapes, sizes and flavors,
as do you know, industries. So you do have to understand your
industry, understand what you might anticipate, but then you have
to go and collect and see the data and understand it and then you
can make an effective change. So, yeah, same thing. Same thing.


Peter Koch: [00:16:34] That's interesting. I
have a similar experience as a ski patroller, so it's one of the
mountains that I work at here. We have a big cross-country
following and we actually had the Chevy Nationals happen from a
cross-country standpoint. And when they come, there's hundreds
and hundreds of elite college athletes that are coming and will
have a similar piece as a patroller. We have to either respond
[00:17:00] to the injury that occurs and it could be a traumatic
injury from a fall or it could be a medical issue whether it's
hyperventilating or it could be a frostbite piece. Some of the
patrollers that I that I work with don't have a cross-country
experience. So they're treating them from the perspective of,
say, an alpine event or an alpine injury or an injury that might
happen from downhill skiing instead of cross-country skiing,
where as the cross-country athlete, I've done cross-country
myself. I actually had one of the coaches there. And we're
looking at the particular individual as we're coming in. They're
being treated by another patroller. The patroller is on one
tactic and thought process about what the injury is where because
I know more and the coach knows a lot about what's happening with
that particular athlete, they're able to weave that experience
into to understand what's going on with that person a little more
naturally and then be able to direct care [00:18:00] a little bit
more accurately.


Peter Koch: [00:18:02] So the value of being
either there to observe or to be able to observe prior to the
injury happening. So not just watching the worker as they get
injured or seeing it happen, but actually watching and gaining
data about what's going on in the industry on the shop floor with
your workers is a key part to really understanding what's
happening, so that's a really connective piece that we want to we
want to bring back into our model there. Let's take the injury
that happens to the worker or let's actually bring it to the
athletic side to start with and then we'll move it over to the
worker. So when someone does get injured, they're going to
experience some sort of pain and everybody experiences pain
differently. But we've had conversations about this, too. And as
the provider, whether you're the athletic trainer or the PT or
you might even be the [00:19:00] coach at the time when the
person gets there, how you approach or how you communicate with
that worker or the athlete about pain is a pretty critical part
in how the individual might experience their recovery over time.
So could you talk a little bit about how that initial
conversation and the ongoing conversation with the athlete about
their pain levels can help or hinder the actual recovery?


Clayton Cartwright: [00:19:27] Yes, so an area
that I really started to kind of gain some interest in was this
whole concept of pain science, which is really a really
fascinating topic. And so what I started to learn from that
process is that communication piece. You know, when we approach
somebody and start asking them about their pain and what they're
feeling. There are so many variables that goes into that on an
individual basis. It could be their prior experiences. I mean,
there is just a wide variety of [00:20:00] things that have
impacted their life that could amplify or decrease the amount of
pain that they're experiencing. So one thing that that really
kind of stands out is how I started to approach asking patients,
athletes about their pain experiences, you know, instead of
always asking them, you know, we hear the standard rate, your
pain on a scale from zero to 10 like that was you know, you ask
that pretty much on a daily basis over.


Peter Koch: [00:20:25] How much does it hurt?
Right. Because that's the first question that happens, right? If
someone comes to you and they're limping. How much does that hurt
or are you in pain? And it starts the conversation. It's almost a
conversation starter. So interesting. So keep going. Sorry, I
didn't mean to interrupt you.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:20:38] No, no. I mean,
that's exactly it is. But then what happens is, is that is our go
to question every time. What's your pain, what's your pain, you
know, so if you are continuingly to ask somebody what their pain
level is, well, now what you've done is you started to make them
just think about it more. And [00:21:00] so what we see and what
we know is pain is processed in the brain. Right. So let's take,
for example, touching a hot stove. Right. The stimulus is the hot
stove. That information goes to the brain. Your brain says it's a
threat. So I'm going to produce pain to let you know that you
shouldn't do that again. And so what happens is when you start to
constantly ask somebody about their pain levels, well, now their
pain sort of increases because they're constantly thinking about
it and they think that it should maybe hurt more than what
they're telling you. And so pain is subjective to the person.
Right. But you sort of see I've seen patterns when I was
practicing as a therapist where pain levels would slowly kind of
creep up for some people.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:21:51] So it was it was
very interesting. So my approach then started to be more asking
functional type questions or questions [00:22:00] that would
maybe help build them up a little more. For example, I might say
something like, hey, well, tell me what something that you could
do this week that you weren't able to do last week. So I'm not
really directly asking them about their pain. I'm asking them
more about function. And so in their head, if they're if they
hadn't been thinking about it that way and they can say, oh,
well, hey, I was able to do my daily walk for two miles and, you
know, a little bit of discomfort, but it was I could do it, you
know, automatically that that sets them up for success. That's a
victory for them. And so if you can kind of help point them in
that direction versus always asking them about pain, you know, I
just felt like it was a much better approach to their care. And
it seemed to it seemed to really help with recovery process. So
it's very interesting.


Al Brown: [00:22:50] Pain is one of those things
that's kind of cool. I mean, it's cool. That's kind of weird
sounding. But, you know, going back to the athletic training
world, [00:23:00] when you'd have someone that went down and
they're writhing in pain out on the field, my approach, the first
thing was to just calm them down before I started to assess, just
to get them to understand or get them let them explain to me what
happened and then try to get them to realize all those other
parts of your body aren't hurt. You can kind of let those relax a
little bit. Let's just look at the knee, if that's what just got
hurt. And once they realized there was a calming effect there,
you could move forward. Sort of same thing in the PT world. You
know, I'd have folks that would come in that might have an
injured shoulder. They would have this fixed hand posture trying
to move things around and they wouldn't move their hand. And I
go, What's up with your hand? And they go, Why? And I go, you're
moving it around like it's injured. And I said, just open and
close your fingers. And I go, Oh, I said, Yeah, you can do that.
It's kind of an illness posture. And part of that is
subconscious. Part of it is unconscious. And [00:24:00] you can
get into other problems because they stop moving that.


Al Brown: [00:24:03] And if we were to focus on
pain all the time, you probably would go round and round just
like Clayton said. You know, there's situations where it begins
to escalate. So function. I'm a real fan of focusing on function
in terms of looking at, you know, work related activities. It's
great in the in the sports world, it's pretty easy to. Not easy,
but there's a logical progression back towards the athletic event
in the work world, sometimes we get into this light duty and, you
know, on light duty, off light duty. What does that mean? Where
I'd like to look at it more because words matter. I like to look
at it more as transitional work. And when you take that
functional model and you use that word transitional work, it
works much better because you are transitioning the person back
to that job task. But you do it by looking at function like it,
Clayton said. What can you do today that you couldn't do
[00:25:00] last week? Oh, I can. You know, it doesn't hurt to
hold this tool anymore and. OK, good. Let's you know, and then
progress accordingly. And for the employer that works a whole
bunch better, too, because light duty on and off is like a light
switch. Either you're on it or you're off it.


Al Brown: [00:25:16] And that can bring
psychological issues that if you're about to say to someone,
you're off light duty now, they're going to go, oh my God. But I
still have you know, I still have issues where if you're
transitioning, doesn't matter if you just kind of move along that
timeline and back to function. And you might here's my ergo
pitch. You might have to modify that job, but that modification
might be a permanent improvement to the job, which will probably
talk about a little bit later. But so that functional approach is
huge and one that was ingrained in our the one thing we didn't I
didn't mention earlier, but I worked on site in industry for a
number of years, which was more the athletic training model. So I
was at the playing field for the for the [00:26:00] workers. Not
every company has that luxury, but that was huge to be able to
walk out and actually see the job and make the modifications. So
100 percent pro functional approach because it really does
address the pain but doesn't you don't get into a direct
conversation about it because, you know, like I think I explained
to you guys earlier, I could hit all our hands with a hammer. And
Clayton might wince a little bit. You might not you go, is that
the best you got? I'd probably


Peter Koch: [00:26:31] I might whine. All right.


Al Brown: [00:26:32] Yeah, I might cry for the
next three days. And it was the same force, but we all perceive
the pain differently. So, you know, it is it is truly it's all
those past experiences that help determine our pain response.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:26:47] And I think that
that was a great comment you made about the calming effect of
what we think of that approach and the communication style. And
so something that I saw a lot, too, is, you know, people
[00:27:00] bringing imaging studies, x rays, MRIs, you know, and
it might say on there you have mild, mild degeneration at X, Y,
Z, a certain disk or whatever. And what they would see is, oh, I
have degeneration in my back, but they don't see mild, you know,
those key terms that, you know, that degenerative processes is a
part of the aging process. You know, so sometimes you would just
explaining that to them would help to take some of that tension
off of them. Right. Because if they're thinking, oh, my gosh,
degeneration in my back, oh, I'm going to need surgery and all of
a sudden their head, you know, we've all done it with certain
things. You know, you just start compounding the oh, my gosh,
this is the end of the world kind of thing. But if you have
somebody who can at least sort of talk you off the ledge, you
know, for lack of a better term, you know, that calming effect of
being able to approach somebody like that does, again, huge
impact with how we communicate with and it's the same in the
[00:28:00] workforce to the athletes. So I think that's a great
point.


Al Brown: [00:28:04] I used to torture those
folks sometimes because they come in and they go, I got this
degenerate disc disease and, you know, it would be a 50 year old.
And I go, well, if you didn't, you'd be a genetic freak, for
God's sakes, I'd like to know how the heck you don't have any. I
said, welcome to Gravity. We all live in gravity. Eventually
things are going to wear out. That's why we end up back as dirt
later on. So, of course, you've got some arthritic changes in
your body. That's part of the aging process. So I try to diffuse
it that way if I can.


Peter Koch: [00:28:35] I think it's always good
to try that and thinking about it from the functional transition
or transitioning to one function to another, function to another,
or progressing in function is another. I guess a better way to
look at that versus pain management is for lack of a better term,
much more functional way of dealing with whether it be an injury
on the athletic field or to an athlete [00:29:00] on the athletic
field or the industrial athlete, because that's the whole intent
of it. Right. We want to get people back to what they were doing.
And if you're getting paid to play football, you're getting paid
to play a particular sport. Doesn't matter what it is, you're
going to want to get back to functions somehow and talking about
function as what could you do versus what you can't do and what
do you want to be able to do. And then moving someone towards
that, I think is a is a great way to do it. Instead of saying,
OK, we're just going to manage your pain through whatever process
we want your pain to be an eight so that you can do this well, it
might still be an eight. So we're going to look at how you
actually move through that pain or in that pain, and we'll figure
out a way for you to rest or work to the point where you can
start recovering and getting better. Clayton, in some of our
conversations, there were a couple of different things that you
had brought up that said principal. [00:30:00] And can you talk a
little bit about that and how maybe that works towards that pain
management process in the transition back to function?


Clayton Cartwright: [00:30:08] The human body is
pretty incredible, you know, and it is designed to heal itself,
you know? So I think that's really important for people to hear
and understand. And so what the SAID principle is or stands for
really is specific adaptations to impose demands, fancy
terminology. But really what that means is that the stresses that
we put on our body, our body is going to adapt to that. So I
think we had talked about an example of that would be, say, an
ankle sprain. You know, what I might do with that person first is
we might just have them walk and see if they can tolerate that.
Do that for a little while. OK, let's try a little bit of light
jogging so we get the jogging doing well right now. We're going
to progress to running straight lines. They do well. All right.
Now, maybe some cutting and pivoting work start to do well with
that. Right now, we're going [00:31:00] to get back into sports
specific training or work specific training again to allow that
person to ask an athlete or a worker to see their successes and
see that they are progressing in the right direction. So but it's
important, though, that you understand you have to put stresses
on the body. You always hear the RICE principle, right rest ice
compression elevation, which to an extent. Can be good, but
again, it's very early on in the process. At a very early stage.
You need to start to put the body under some tension, you know,
in order to make that progress back to the level that they're at.
So a principle that I would think about often, you know,
especially when I was in the clinic, you know, treating patients
so and that you're treating patients from a work perspective. And
my athletes, again, it's I looked at them pretty much the same.


Peter Koch: [00:31:55] Yeah. And that goes, I
think Al, to your point before that, that the [00:32:00] idea of
light duty as being that kind of that light switch. Right. So I'm
on light duty. I'm off light duty doesn't actually provide for
that principle to put stresses on the body in a measured time or
at through measure time in order to generate healing. And you've
talked about this Al in other podcasts before, kind of going
towards what Clayton was talking about, about the RICE principle.
If the treatment is rest, ice compression elevation and that's
all you do, what happens to you? Right. So I'll throw that to you
also, if that's what we do, what happens if all we ever do is
rest the injury?


Al Brown: [00:32:39] Yeah, I can draw an analogy
or comparison here between the sports world to let's just look at
what an athlete goes and participates. They do some, they do
different things. They elevate their tolerance level and they do
that through strength training, endurance training, flexibility,
you know, in the world of strength [00:33:00] training, just to
understand the physiology, you go in and you do something to
Claytons point that sort of the SAID principle you've got to
create. You know, you go in and you lift a certain weight and
it'll cause some tearing down of the tissue. And one of two
things happens. You either get injured or you your body adapts,
but it takes probably about 48 hours, 24 to 48 hours for your
body to recover from that if you make an appropriate inroad in on
the body physically. So you sort of tear the body down and then
it gets stronger. So you need that recovery period. And then you
come back maybe on a Monday, on a Wednesday, you come back again
and do it again with a lot of workers. They don't do a lot of
other things other than their work activities. So that is sort of
their tolerance level. So unfortunately, tolerance and work
activity are sort of the same line with the athlete. Usually
there's a tolerance or a fitness level that's above where their
exposure level is. So there is a buffer in there. [00:34:00] So
the worker, it's a little trickier in that if they have they work
overtime one day or they have extra packages or the poor U.P.S.


Al Brown: [00:34:09] folks that have been in
FedEx have just been shipping more stuff than they ever have.
They're going to bump above that activity line. So either if the
industry's good and they sort of gradually progress them into
that, they may adapt. And again, that fitness line and work line
are going to follow each other. This company in Northern
California took a more proactive approach and said, let's get
that wellness line, fitness line way above the work line and see
if that helps. And sure enough, it created a buffer to protect
their workers. So it takes a lot of effort to do that. So you can
see how if an industry just is sort of a rice type of person will
just do first aid kind of and never do anything more than that.
You will always have to be cognizant of those moments [00:35:00]
where activity goes over and above the overtime that harder work.
And it's even down to like accounting, like month ends. Someone
sits and puts twelve hours into the day at a desk and all of a
sudden there goes my arm first and arm hurt. Well, there it is
again. You know, you've exceeded that tolerance level. So when
you're looking at things and you're looking at said principle,
sometimes if it's a fairly passive company, that line of wellness
in that line of work are pretty much the same levels. So.


Peter Koch: [00:35:37] Let's take a quick break
so I can tell you about our E Ergo resource that can be used to
help solve ergonomic challenges at your workplace, sometimes
contacting, contracting with and scheduling an ergonomics or
occupational health nurse for an onsite evaluation doesn't really
fit with our Just-In-Time workflows in a competitive economy.
Fixing the problem right now is essential, [00:36:00] and
improving worker comfort and efficiency are key components to
ongoing success. So free to our policyholders. MEMICs E Ergo tool
can help you overcome ergonomic challenges. With just five quick
photos or a short 30 second video and a brief explanation of what
is being shown. You can send us the critical demands and
essential functions within the work tasks once received. Our
ergonomics team can identify risks and exposures and provide
reasonable suggestions for ergonomic improvement within just a
few short days. Start the E Ergo process by logging into the
MEMIC safety director at www.youtube.com/Workplace Safety. Now
let's get back to today's episode.


 


And it becomes challenging then, especially if they're in that
same level, like you said, to try to increase the stresses, to be
able to have that buffer. And that is that's a tricky part. But I
think recognizing [00:37:00] that and to the point of towards the
athletic training model of being there on the shop floor, being
there with the workers to see what's going on, have your finger
on the pulse of the activity level or the business levels to see
where that might lay, might be able to help stem off some of that
stuff.


Peter Koch: [00:37:21] But even on the injury
side, like post injury, like if you never if you never move the
injured part, I mean, just think about it. If you've ever been
injured in any of our listeners, if you've ever been injured
before and you're just coming out of the cast from a broken
whatever it is, you know, the first couple of days coming out of
that cast is really super challenging. And all you really want to
do is sit down and do nothing. But if you sit down and do nothing
and just rest it, you're never going to get past the atrophy that
has happened from being still in that cast for so long. And then
to your point, before Clayton, your body will adapt. So in
another [00:38:00] way, your body has adapted to that limb being
stationary for a while and it's challenged other parts of your
body. It might have challenged your gait. It might have
challenged your hip posture. It might have challenged your
shoulders. So all those things have to be looked at and adjusted
and you can't do that unless you're moving. So I think movement
in a in in a healing principle is pretty important. And that goes
to looking at your providers that you're going to be engaging
with as a workplace so that your occupational health providers
need to understand that principle of bringing your individuals
back to health through that transitional duty rather than just
light duty on off switch like you had set out.


Al Brown: [00:38:43] And that's part of the
vetting process. As an employer, you need to go out and know who
your Occ. Med providers are, because the family doc is great for
family doctor things. But a lot of times they're approached
because they may not be intimate with the job tasks. [00:39:00]
And the work test at the bed may be, you know, familiar with my
er to the side of conservative and say, go back to rice. And when
we rested for a couple of weeks and see how it goes and now we
start to create that illness behavior, it's the athlete that
doesn't get back into play. You know, we're waiting. We're
waiting. It's the MASH Army unit, you know, the mobile army
surgical hospital. They did they learned early on that we've got
to move that very close to the front lines, get folks healed and
back and return them back, you know, as sad as that is. But
that's it. Psychologically, it worked much better than to have
them go so far back from the line. And then there's a barrier of
return. Same thing with work, same thing with athletics. So it's
important to kind of take that, you know, very proactive
approach. And by your vetting process of looking at your
provider, getting to understand, are they functionally focused,
do they understand their job tasks? Is their goal to get that
person [00:40:00] back to work? You know, so you're right. You're
exactly right about that.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:40:05] And that that
communication piece is crucial. You know, I know we've talked and
Al, you talked about your experiences about being actually on
site, you know, within a company, but certainly understanding
that not every business can certainly afford that on site
provider to be there, you know, 24/7 or during hours of
operation. So, look, you know, using your local community, there
are PT clinics, a dime a dozen now, you know, I'm sure. And
that's that vetting process. You know, you could even probably go
out and find a provider that, you know, might possibly be able to
come in and do some analysis with you or something along those
lines. So it's important, I think, to also realize that there are
providers out there and it is a little bit more of a proactive
approach, but can certainly help you in the long run by
identifying those key players, you know, that that you want to
have on your side.


Peter Koch: [00:40:58] Yeah, and that's a great
lead. [00:41:00] And I think to start talking about the athletic
training model for injury prevention as well. So we're starting
to kind of merge those two. We've talked quite a bit about when
an injury happens, how you talk to the injured worker about their
pain, about their function or function versus pain and how we
communicate with our providers. And now we're looking at helping
or getting our providers to help us assess our workplace, not
just from an A maybe an improvement after an injury occurs, but
it could even be assessing the workplace to prevent injury in the
first place. And I think some of that happened. It's obviously
post injury. But with the NorCal study there, Al, that that UPS
did made some. Changes using that athletic training model to help
reduce injuries overall, so they combined the or used injuries as
a I'm missing the word here.


Al Brown: [00:41:57] So sort of a motivator. You
know, kind [00:42:00] of the thing that affected change is they
actually that was the motivator to effect change.


Peter Koch: [00:42:06] So good. Yeah, that's a
great point that it is the motivator. So they looked at their
losses. They understood that they're in a place where they need
to have some change happen. And then they implemented the model
and made some. Made some.


Al Brown: Adjustments


Peter Koch :to address things as they could,
based on that, they said not just the information, but I'm sure
they had people come in and assess the workplace. So let's talk
some about how we can use that injury or the athletic training
model to manage injury prevention, reduce injuries in the first
place.


Al Brown: [00:42:40] I can tell you there's a
couple industries that I've worked with that have done that
there. You know, I'm sure they won't mind me using their name.
L.L. Bean. It was, a very proactive, very much looking at design,
talking to the industrial athlete about how can we best make the
work environment fit them. As a matter of fact, thirty [00:43:00]
eight years, 40 years ago, they actually created the first sit/
stand workstations, you know, which are very commonplace
nowadays, probably popular over the last ten years. But they did
it way ahead of time because they realized they were seeing more
injuries in the phone center. So they actually created sit/stand
workstations with the equipment they had at the time. Move fast
forward. And you now see many of their checkout stations are
fully adjustable. So if a different statured worker comes in,
someone might be five one and there was a six two person there
prior. They can adjust the workstation down electrically in the
packing areas. They realize people are having wrist hand issues.
So they actually started a strengthening program through gripping
programs and they actually saw a reduction in their injuries. So
that's that more said principle, like let's stimulate, but to do
it proactively so we can increase that that fitness level or that
wellness level above the work level.


Al Brown: [00:43:59] You go [00:44:00] to a
place like the Jackson Labs up in Bar Harbor and they're also in
Farmington, Connecticut, and out in Sacramento, they actually
have a simulated workplace that if someone is having issues, they
actually demonstrate what they do at the workplace to see if
biomechanically they're doing something that we can modify just
biomechanically and change, like the runner that's got, you know,
plantar fasciitis. And we might, through an orthotic or some
taping is an industrial athlete, is an athlete, help with the
biomechanics. So they look at the biomechanics, but then they
also look at the ergonomics that that designed the designs.
Really not that good. We need to maybe modify the design, too. So
I've worked with different industries that have had that luxury
to be at the front lines and have taken different approaches. And
again, to Claytons Point, not everybody can afford to have that
on site presence. But I have worked with industry where we've
gone as MEMIC [00:45:00] onsite to help them to understand some
of those nuances and to look at it through that athletic training
model.


Peter Koch: [00:45:08] Clayton, how about you?
So how would you bring the athletic training model to bear on
some of the maintenance? Maybe it's preventative maintenance or
other tactics that the employer can use to help stem off injuries
within the workplace?


Clayton Cartwright: [00:45:21] Yeah, so finding
that person who sort of understands the industry and I kind of
take it back to that example I gave earlier with sitting on the
couch watching a football game, you watch and you watch something
happy. You say, oh, I think that's a blunt ACL tear. Well, if you
have somebody who understands the business and what types of
tests you're doing, that that person can certainly help maybe
identify and be proactive in identifying those things like LL
Bean. Al, you were saying for, for example, identifying those
things that could potentially lead to an injury. Right. Because
if [00:46:00] you don't correct the source that injured worker
could go get treatment, get all better, 100 percent, come back
and they're back into the same positions that they were in before
and now you're back to square one. So it's having that proactive
approach to be able to identify it. But also there is, I think,
some onus on the workforce and the employee, you know, with just
even you know, we talk about preventative maintenance type stuff,
you know, at the professional level, you know, I was with the
Steelers. I mean, those guys would spend a lot of money, you
know, to massages, acupuncture. I mean, they would do everything
they had plus there to provide treatments and go through rehab
protocols and those things. And that's not necessarily within the
realm of the traditional workforce. But there are things that you
can certainly do outside of work. You know, instead of going home
and sitting at the end of the day, you know, maybe you're
[00:47:00] doing a walk or you have some type of strength
training program or program that that you like to do. So you're
trying to do that a couple of days a week to keep your body sort
of in shape and in tune with what you want to complete it as far
as the workers concerned. So some lifestyle choices, I think, is
also a big a big area to focus on.


Peter Koch: [00:47:25] Yeah. And I think the
athletic training model can certainly help that. And as you're
talking, what struck me was that we've been talking about the
similarities between the worker and the athlete. I think a big
difference, and especially when we start to look at injury
prevention and what tools you can employ to protect the worker or
the athlete. The biggest difference is from the athlete's
standpoint, the sport's not going to change. You're not going to
go into it thinking, all right, we're going to make football
noncontact or we're going to make so you don't have to swing the
tennis racket both ways or [00:48:00] you can only do something.
The sport's not going to change. So the athlete has to adapt
their body. Must adapt their body to the demands of the
particular sport. As a worker, the job and we've seen this before
in every industry, there are many aspects of the job that can
change. And that goes to the maybe a discussion about the
hierarchy of controls as we start to look at how do we manage the
as you said before, Clayton, the threat to the particular
industrial athlete. So the sports athlete, you're not going to
change the sport. You've got to change the person or have to
harden the athlete to the particular job as the worker. I think
the place where we should start first is what you were alluding
to before having someone come in. Or maybe you have the expertise
right within your own your own business to assess the workspace,
to see what changes we can [00:49:00] make. So can you maybe talk
a little bit about that from the not so much the athletic
training standpoint, but what's the benefit and where does that
fit in with the hierarchy of controls and how does that manage
injuries within the workplace?


Clayton Cartwright: [00:49:14] So, you know, I
think when we look at that hierarchy of controls, right, we're
looking at things like eliminating hazards or coming up with
engineering controls. So we're trying to really reduce the stress
that the employee is putting on their bodies. Right. Because,
again, if we go and we look at the athlete who maybe they have
the luxury of taking some rest days after competition, right.
Where the workforce doesn't. So that's where it becomes sort of
critical to be able to reduce some of that loading in that stress
on their bodies, you know, to reduce the risk of developing some
type of injury on site. So I [00:50:00] think that is where, you
know, we as MEMIC I think, really thrive is being able to help
with that process. So. That's kind of the way that I look at it.


Al Brown: [00:50:11] I'll give you some
historical perspective, too. You know, I think I've been around a
little longer than Clayton, you know, and that was just birth
order. But I just had an interesting thought as he was talking.
And it was about and let's just use football, think about the
tools of football when football started. Think about did they
wear helmets? They don't start with no, and then they said we're
probably having some head injury, so we really need to. So then
they created these leather things and put those on people's heads
and then they said, boy, a lot of smashed noses. Maybe we ought
to create a face mask, you know? And then it was the single bar
and then it was the multiple bar. [00:51:00] And then people were
get poked in the eyes. And now we've got plexiglass over the eyes
and, you know, so and just think of just a helmet, not let alone
I mean, just all the other pads have changed tremendously. And
then you go to the industrial side and you go think of the first
pick, something simple screwdriver, you know, and it was this
linear thing that you put your hand on. You turned, you know, and
you had to make sure you stayed in the slot and forearm pain, all
kinds of discomfort. And then we had the inline electric
screwdriver. And now we've got a pistol grip, you know. So again,
I think function and form sort of change, but it's through
reacting and looking at where are we seeing the injuries and how
do we sort of prevent those from occurring. So humans have the
same physiological limits they always have. You know, we haven't
changed. I mean, we're changing a little bit, but actually I
think we're getting a little weaker.


Al Brown: [00:51:58] But for the most part, that
physiology [00:52:00] has pretty much stayed the same. And we
have gotten smarter. And what we tolerate is much less to I mean,
you think about what coal miners used to go through and go, oh,
we lost one today, you know, call HR and that was brutal. And now
we don't tolerate that kind of stuff. So the laws have kind of
pushed us in that direction and the care of human beings. So, you
know, our mantra at MEMIC is I want you to I want, you know, when
you I want you to go home from work feeling just as good as when
you came in. You know, I don't want you to go home feeling pain
and discomfort. So, you know, part of that solution process
sometimes with industry is to help folks look with a different
set of eyes and take that proactive approach and try to find
maybe a change to find the exposure and risk and then try to
address it might be through education, but it might also be
through modification of the job and reengineering in the long
run. You know, [00:53:00] you get a person that feels better.
They're going to work better, less exhaustion. And at the end of
the day, that company's going to have a better product because
you don't have a fatigue, sore, achy worker trying to put the
last not on the trailer light and does a poor job. And next thing
you know, the consumer buys that trailer and the trailer lights
falling off and it's well because of the bad ergonomics of the
design. So it's a win win win. When you look at that whole that
whole system,


Peter Koch: [00:53:28] It's good to look at your
history and look at the injuries and try to prevent it that way.
But I think from again, looking at it from the athletic model, I
want to be able to maintain my athlete in prime position or prime
condition. So I'm going to do things with them and for them that
are going to allow them to stay healthy. And I'm also going to
then look at the workplace. From a functional design standpoint
and [00:54:00] take into consideration the load, the frequency,
the mechanics of the lift or the process that they have to go
through in order to do that and think about it from a physical
standpoint, how do I make this not so much easier, but how do I
make this functional for them? Like we talked about function from
a transition to function instead of looking at it from a pain
standpoint. If I look at a job task from a how does the function
of the job task fit in with the general function of a human
being, I'm going to be much better suited to prevent injuries
across the board than if I just look at it. From how many widgets
do I get in the bucket at the end of the day or how many words
can I type? I mean, you think about that from the perspective of
typing. And when we went from an administrative assistant
working, taking notes, handwritten notes to working on the
typewriter, [00:55:00] which you had to take a break and move the
carriage over to one side or the other, to an electric
typewriter, to now a word processor. And we're seeing many, many,
many more repetitive motion carpal tunnel type injuries from that
perspective because technology changed. But we didn't look at how
the function of the technology would affect the function of the
human or interact with the function of the human. And I think
that's a really key thing to consider as an employer. As I look
at my business from an athletic training standpoint or look at my
workers as athletes, if I have that perspective, it is like you
said, it's a win going forward.


Al Brown: [00:55:41] When I had the typewriter
at least I had to go find the White-Out occasionally, you know,
occasionally have to leave the desk. Now you just hit delete, you
know, or backspace, so less movement, so different, different
sort of problems, you know, set of problems.


Clayton Cartwright: [00:55:56] And I think
that's you know, I think that's a good thing to do, [00:56:00] to
say it's a constant process. You know, like you said, as things
change, there's going to be a new set of issues that pop up. So I
guess the best way to say it would be, you know, you don't want
people to think that they get to a spot where they say, yes,
we've done it. You know, it's just when they fix one thing, the
next issue's going to pop up. So it's that constant, you know,
just awareness and observation and, you know, being aware of your
injuries, to be able to make those corrections, you know, as they
come up.


Peter Koch: [00:56:31] Now that's great. And
again, that fits in with the athletic standpoint of the worker,
too, because and you think about it from your PT standpoint or
your athletic training experience if someone comes to you either
with an injury or a goal. Right. Here's my goal. I want to get
from where I am right now to better function where I want to be.
They're going to at some point in time, plateau. They're going to
reach a point where they're not going to get any better unless
you change something in their treatment path. So [00:57:00]
that's I see that as a the same way, just as what you said, in
that you can't just rest on your laurels and think you've
succeeded. You have to have a constant process of reevaluation to
see if you're really meeting those goals, because those are some
of those injuries, like repetitive motion injuries or overuse
injuries will sneak right up on you, like something odd will
change in the process. And it might even just be a personality on
the line. Like someone within the line or someone within the
process will understand the process in a certain way, which will
affect people down the road a little bit further. And it will
change how they interact with the product or how they interact
with the process, which could put them at a greater risk of
injury.


Peter Koch: [00:57:46] So if you don't have a
continual analysis program to address issues or injuries or
potential problems that come up in the workplace, you're going to
miss it and you're going to rest on your laurels. And then you're
going to look back some [00:58:00] day and go, wow, how did we
get to where we are now? How do we get all these injuries? How
did we get there? And so that I think looking at the worker as an
athlete is a great way of helping prevent some of that, because
it does it doesn't treat both the employer and the employee to
have the best conditioned workplace as possible and to be the
best worker as possible in order to achieve the goal that we want
to have to be successful as an employer and to be successful as
an employee. Excellent. All right, so we are getting that was a
quick hour, we're we are getting right to the end of our podcast
here, unbelievably so. Anything else you guys want to add about
how looking at a worker as an industrial athlete can be
beneficial to the employer?


Al Brown: [00:58:48] I might just add, you know,
and when we look at athletics, sports have been vetted. You know,
I've had people that said I can't believe he's out bowling.
Here's an injured worker, [00:59:00] he's out bowling and I'm
going bowling exists. And people have learned how to bowl and use
good body technique and probably can tolerate bowling because
they're using good body mechanics. And if you probably look back
at their job, they probably use lousy body mechanics, and that's
probably what got him into trouble. So don't you know diss among
the fact that they might be out doing something physical,
particularly a sport, because a lot of times sports. We have
worked the process enough that we've learned, you know, good body
technique, it's when we get out of position that we get hurt,
it's when we twist and we get hurt. But like skiing, you know, if
you're good at skiing, you stay in control. You know, the proper
technique so you don't get hurt. Sometimes we don't do that at
work. You know, we and if you understand some of the human
limits, you know, some of the basics, for example, in manual
material handling, don't put it on the floor and don't put it
above shoulder, but keep it between your knees [01:00:00] and
your shoulder over just below shoulder level and keep it at about
35 pounds. The human limit. Yeah, we can lift hundreds of pounds,
100 pounds. We can deadlift all but the you know, we look at the
formulas in the world of ergonomics and math and human
physiology. We go 50 pounds. That's everybody should be able to
handle 50 pounds.


Al Brown: [01:00:16] Well, that's not true. It's
probably more around thirty five pounds. And that's again, where
you tend to put that thing. So, you know, when we look at human
beings and we're looking for just general guidelines and we're
looking at the you know, as an athlete, where do we kind of start
looking and then and then from there design and create. Because
again, if those things are exceeding the human limits, that's
when we begin to create the injuries. Sports, we tend to know
what the you know, the extremes are and what the limits are and
what injuries we might anticipate. But in the work industry, we
don't think of people as athletes or we don't sometimes think of
their physiology [01:01:00] and we expose them to those risks and
hazards. So we have to start thinking in more of a sports
medicine model, how do we look at that job, make it fit specific
capabilities of the human being that's actually there, and then
help them with recovery and understanding or how to prepare for
the day? Might be warm yourself up to stretch if it's going to
be. I know we work with an oil company now in Maine and every one
of their workers, when they get out of the truck, they step down
and they do three sort of prep stretches to reset their body.
Then they deliver the oil and every delivery, same thing, three
stretches before they start. So that's forward thinking by an
industry and taking those steps to kind of reduce those injuries,
taking that sports medicine model.


Clayton Cartwright: [01:01:48] And, you know,
I'll just kind of throw in there as well. You know, we tend to
look at a sport, you know, say football. Every athlete, you know,
is different. You [01:02:00] know, even though human bodies, you
know, we're all very similar. But there are still some structural
changes or differences. I would say changes, but there are
structural differences that we all have. You know, a big one is
in the hip. You know, the hip socket may be positioned a little
different for somebody. So from a bending, you know, when they do
need to do something, you know, that technique may be different.
So it's, again, taking it from a broad perspective, you know,
looking at a sport or an industry, but still trying to maintain
focus on your work force and or as an athlete, as individuals.
You know, you still have to tease out those individual
differences. And so, you know that from that athletic training
background and perspective, you know, I think that is a point to
make. You still would want to make sure that you're looking at
each person at their own level.


Al Brown: [01:02:56] And, you know, it's just
real quick. I just thought of this a cool crossover that
[01:03:00] I've seen recently, you know, talking about athletes
and workers. I have a lot of you know, back when I was at iron
works, they handed out only male large gloves no matter what your
size. And so if you took someone who was a small person or a
female worker, that might be fifth percentile and you give them a
male large glove. They've already lost 20 percent of their grip
just because of it's a glove. Now, you put on an excessively
large glove and they probably lose half, if not three quarters of
their ability to grip. And if you look at sports today, soccer,
football with their hands, not so much basketball. What are they
wearing? Gloves, and you see these gloves, you see these
fantastic catches, now they can just grab one handed. Well,
there's a lot of application of that with an industry where we're
now taking those sports clubs and applying them to jobs in the
industry where they need a good grip and [01:04:00] a comfortable
grip. And we're finding that there's crossover, which is pretty
cool. So you get to see that sort of connection that some of
those tools that work for them also works for the industrial
athlete.


Clayton Cartwright: [01:04:12] You know, I think
this is a great conversation, too, is sometimes just the
awareness piece of it, you know, just having this conversation
today, is it? It might be a light bulb for that person, like, oh,
I never thought about it that way, you know, but to bring up our
experiences and what we have seen and those comparisons, you
know, maybe it'll change the viewpoint out there for some of our
listeners. So, you know, I just think that awareness piece is
also is pretty huge.


Peter Koch: [01:04:39] Yeah, it is huge. And it
really helps us to move. And I think to your point, Clayton, in
the light bulb of not seeing the industry as just industry, but
seeing that crossover between the person as an athlete and the
person as a worker being combined, and some of the tools that you
might find are functional [01:05:00] or at least concepts that
you find are functional and sports can really be functional
within the within the workplace. And going back to your point,
Al, thinking about the oil company, they're stretching and
warming up. Right. That's been part of athletics for just about
ever, that you're going to have some sort of warm up process
before physical activity and that's now or has moved into
industry. But I think, you know, it waxes and wanes, but there is
benefit to if you're going to do it right and if you're going to
target correctly the functional parts of the body with the
stretch, it's going to be going to be very beneficial. So there's
a lot of learning that you could have from seeing your employee
as an athlete and taking some learnings from the athletic world.
Pretty cool.


Al Brown: [01:05:52] Yeah, we do a lot of with
the stretching program, I sometimes feel get pushed back because
they go there's no research that supports that. And I said a lot
of [01:06:00] times the research is showing gains in flexibility.
And I said a lot of times you're not going to get that because we
can't do a really, you know, a really dedicated stretch program.
But think of stretching and movement within industry as resetting
the body in the world of gravity so that just that might be
slightly bulging backwards. And you do some back extensions we’re
actually resetting the body. We're not necessarily improving it,
but we're trying to reset it back where it was or renourishment,
you know, bring blood flow back into the neck and shoulders just
to change and filter things out. So it's a reset. And once folks
get that understanding, they go, oh, and then they can they'll
see a reduction in injury simply because they're spending time
resetting folks that need that resetting.


Clayton Cartwright: [01:06:53] And so something
that kind of sticks out in my mind and one of my mentors would
always tell me was [01:07:00] and I would say this all the time,
motion is lotion. You know, the human the human body, the human
body is designed to move. The body wants to move. And that's how,
again, we nourish our joints and lubricate things and keep
movement. So that is something that's always stuck with me. And
that's something that I live by, you know, in my own personal
life, you know, from a from a health and fitness perspective. So
motion is lotion. I think it's that's a crucial thing to
understand to in the workforce.


Peter Koch: [01:07:33] That's awesome. I like
it. That has t shirt written all over it. I think that


Al Brown: [01:07:39] Motion is lotion.


Peter Koch: [01:07:46] So as we come to a close
here, I just want to throw this out to you both and sort of in
your in your history, as you as you reflect back on what you've
done in your career or different careers and now where you are
with MEMIC [01:08:00] and working specifically in an industry,
helping workers stay safe and helping employers keep their
employees from being injured. What do you know now that you wish
you had known when you started out that might have had changed
things for you on the way?


Clayton Cartwright: [01:08:17] So for me, I
really think that communication piece, you know, the things that
we say very early on, you know, can really help set us up for
success or it can set us up for a little bit of a failure if
we're not using our words in a manner that's going to help set
somebody up. Right. So, you know, I think that piece of
communication really stands out to me and something that I really
try to focus on when I'm even now at MEMIC, you know, when I'm
talking to our policyholders, how are we communicating with them
and making helping them to understand just how important some
[01:09:00] of these concepts are. So definitely for me, it's the
communication piece.


Peter Koch: [01:09:05] And I definitely took
that away today from our conversation that that was an aha moment
for me going back. I can see where I could have used that
innumerable times, talking with someone from a functional
standpoint instead of a pain management standpoint that could
really have changed the trajectory, early trajectory of an
injury. So for me, I just learned that today. So that was pretty
cool. Al, how about you?


Al Brown: [01:09:29] You know, I speculated
about the proactive approach back when I was young and thought it
was the right way, and I feel like that's been validated over my
years, that, in fact, it was a system that was created probably
from that athletic training world. And as I've gone into the
physical therapy world, have always stayed on the proactive side,
the functional approach, and have found it very valuable. And
probably the most recent [01:10:00] lesson I have learned
probably over the last 10 years is that I need to be I maybe
wasn't as cognizant of it back then, only because I wasn't. But
now that I am older, that physiologically we do change and we
don't stay forever young. So, you know, in Maine, you know, we
have an older workforce. We're actually the oldest workforce in
the nation. And if you look at the demographics across the
country, we have a shift towards an increase in those baby
boomers reaching their 60s and up. And in the work world,
workaday world, you know, we're not all we're not all Tom Brady's
and can be, you know, at the peak performance at forty three. You
know, we have a lot of workers that are in their 60s that we have
to be aware of those comorbidities, those aches and pains that
are, as Clayton had talked about, the degenerative disease. And
as my response to people was, [01:11:00] if you didn't have any,
you must be a genetic freak. And we have to be cognizant of that
when we look at design. And so I probably was not as aware of
that when I was younger simply because I thought, I don't hurt,
I'm fine. But now that I've gotten to this age, I do what I feel
are all the right things. But I still ache in the morning when I
wake up. And that's just part of sort of the natural aging
process. And you have to respect it, understand it and keep it in
mind when you're dealing with a workforce.


Peter Koch: [01:11:32] Cool communication
progression and motion is lotion, I think those are three key
principles we need to take away from today, so that's awesome.
All right. So thanks. Thanks for being here, guys. I really
appreciate sharing your insight and your expertise with myself
and our listeners today. So thanks for being here.


Clayton Cartwright: [01:11:50] Yeah, great. It
was an awesome conversation. I really appreciate the opportunity
to come on and talk with you today, both of you.


Peter Koch: [01:11:56] Right on Clayton. And
we'll have you back for sure.


Al Brown: [01:11:58] He knows it was awesome.
Great. [01:12:00] You know, and I and I didn't realize until
today that looking at Clayton was like looking into a mirror, you
know, but about 10 or 15 years younger. But I didn't realize he
had so many common experiences that I've had. So it's pretty cool
to kind of, you know, here we are colleagues now and learning
those things. But you know what? Every day I hope to learn
something. And today I did.


Peter Koch: [01:12:24] There you go. And it just
goes to show like that communication, that shared experience. One
last piece, like if you think about it from and you think about
the worker as an athlete, the athlete doesn't stand alone. They
have a lot of people that work with them in order to help them be
successful. And as an industrial athlete, you look at your
workers and who are the resources that you can tie into. So can
you tie into can you tie into someone from the outside, whether
that be MEMIC as your insurance carrier or a provider that you
can help bring in to assess your workplace? Or maybe there's some
expertise right within your own business, [01:13:00] some
colleagues that you have that can bring some insight into a
particular engineering challenge that you're having to address,
an exposure that your employees are getting to. So great learning
that we all had today. And communication progression. Motion is
lotion. Love it. That's awesome. So Al and Clay in both. Well,
I'll throw this to you, Al, because you might know better. So
where can our listeners find out more about the industrial
athlete at MEMIC?


Al Brown: [01:13:28] Yes, as a policyholder you
certainly can hit the safety director and you just have to
register because we have some references sort of behind the
safety director web. And you can access a lot of the information
that we've talked about today. If you're a policyholder and you
work with a safety consultant. One of our safety consultants, you
can reach out to them. You always have access to us. And I say
us. It's the ergonomics department with that industrial sports
medicine hat that we wear through [01:14:00] E Ergo and which can
be a virtual assessment of workstations. So we have a lot of
tools and resources that are available. The one thing about MEMIC
is I think we really one thing I enjoy about my job, I can't
speak for, you know, Clayton and you Pete, but we get to partner
with industry all the time. And, you know, I like to think of us
as partners when we walk into an industry so, you know, take
advantage of those services that we have, because with these
kinds of past experiences, a lot of times you can bring a
different set of eyes. So look to the safety director, look to
your safety consultants, look to us, and we might be able to help
you out for sure.


Peter Koch: [01:14:42] And I can see Clayton
shaking his head and I'm shaking my head to that. Yeah, the part
of the part of the thing that I know I enjoy and in my
conversations with Clayton is, is that partnership. So please, if
you're a policyholder, reach out. And if you're not a
policyholder and you're looking for some information, then MEMIC
has some free resources that you can find [01:15:00] right at
MEMIC.com that you can jump right in there under workplace safety
and you can find some great resources that you might be able to
pull in and use within your workplace. So thanks again, Al and
Clayton, for joining us today. And to all of our listeners out
there today on the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, we've been
speaking about the industrial athlete with Al Brown and Clayton
Cartwright. If you have any questions for Al or Clayton or. We'd
like to hear more about a particular topic on our podcast. Email
me at podcast@ MEMIC.com. Also, check out our show notes at
MEMIC.com/podcast, where you can find additional resources, links
to other podcasts and our entire podcast archive. And while
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thank you for the continued support. And until next time, this is
Peter Koch reminding you that listening to the MEMIC Safety
Experts podcast is good, but using what you learned here is even
better.