Posted By Ron Hunter Sound practical advice for all those engaged in physical labour, but perhaps not the prescriptive "all line up in the yard" variety. What works for sportsmen and athletes is equally valid in the workplace - warmed up muscles are less prone to injury.

Posted By Konstanty Budkiewicz HB, Socially, I associate warn-up exercises and a preliminary step before significant exertion. In a work context, my first challenge would be why are we sustaining the injuries? For warehouse operations I would be continuously seeking to reduce the ergonomic and manual handling aspect, so that the potential for harm is kept to a minimum. That said, you have a golden opportunity to identify the high risk harming events - ask the staff about the processes that need warm-up prep. It is likely that these are the ones that involve exertion and cause harm. By all means do the warm-up process for the interim period(good laugh and team building opportunity), but aim for lifting assessments and the review of processes. This will no doubt lead to the introduction of lifting aides or changes in lifting techniques. Regards Kon CMIOSH

Posted By Pete Longworth Bob That's why I stay a way from "smoothy makers" "juicers" and other such hippyness. I'm a meat pie and mushy peas person and always will be. Having said that I play golf and support Burnley FC so nobody's perfect.

Posted By steve e ashton get a decent pie and you get all four food groups together - sugar, fat, gristle, and burnt crunchy bits. Warm-up and toning exercises can be very useful in reducing individual predisposition to muscular strain. I used to do human kinetcs training and always included warm up stretching and toning exercises. The RoSPA / Doug Payne videos (with Robin Nedwell - which probably shows my age) "Moving On" and "Get a Move On" advocated this approach. Whether you can (or should) make them compulsory is another question, but I try to keep an open mind...

Posted By Adam Worth I brought this up a while ago and got an emailed response on the subject from someone who worked on some research for the new Manual Handling regs. (Not sure why they didn’t share it with us all?) According to the research there is NO scientific evidence that warming up reduces injury, also it was pointed out the most people are 'warm enough' when they get to work. hmmmm I will provide links to the research if people like. However I think there are some tricky issues. a) What is suitably and sufficiently warmed up? b) What if injuries occur during warm up (or if incorrect warms up lead to problems? c) How would you taylor warm ups for specific tasks? Trickier than you fist think, although from my experience of martial arts, yoga and my back problem I think it’s an important topic As for smoothies there was a good article in New Scientist about them upping your sperm count, who'd argue with that!!!! I'm a hippie at heart and a semi vegetarian but still think that the peas in pot noodle, or the fruit in a bar of Fruit and Nut must count as 1 portion!

Posted By M Forbes Adam Im sorry to pick on you but i have this argument with my girlfriend all the time. You are either a vegetarian or you aren't She eats chicken she is NOT a vegetarian, yet she claims to be. Annoys the tits out of me lol You're just getting the brunt of this domestic dispute cuz im at work and cant bawl down her throat at the moment. . . Im guessing you say semi-vegetarian cuz you eat chicken?

Posted By George Adsett-Knutsen Hi all, my first contribution to the IOSH discussion forum. Adam, I had heard this but did not know the source, please can you supply the link. Many thanks. George - 17+ years a real veggie but just started eating fish again like there's no tomorrow!

Posted By CFT Ah, right then, 'up one two, down one two, up one two; now the other sock' C

Posted By Jim Walker And another thing!......... I get plenty of vegtables & fruit in my diet Cows eat grass I eat beef, beef is just concentrated grass. I drink wine which is just fruit with the water taken out

Posted By garyh Keep it up guys! Newspaper headlines are a bit thin then along comes the cavalry.......... "SAFETY TALIBAN ZEALOTS MAKE US DO AREOBICS AT WORK! Thanks again (from a Mr A Newspaper-editor)