Stretch to save the day
Tradies’ wages are suffering due to unnecessary injuries
Australia’s tradies are missing out on $4000 a year due to time off work for injuries. But health experts say just 10 minutes of stretching at the start of each day could reduce the severity of work-related aches and pains, which typically force tradies off the job for weeks to recover.
“Tradies will look after their own tool boxes … (but) there’s often a lack of priority given to their number one tool, which is their body,” says occupational therapist Dave Hall.
“Being a tradie is a physical job. There are days where you will feel fatigued and a bit achy. But we shouldn’t normalise that and expect to always feel sore and achy and that that’s just part of the job – that’s not going to work well.”
INDUSTRIAL ATHLETE
Research from hipages, Australia’s largest online tradie marketplace, reveals 71 per cent of tradespeople have experienced work-related aches and pains in the past year.
Electricians and builders are the most likely to be injured at work, with muscular strains, pulls and tears the most common injuries, followed by cuts and scrapes.
On average, the injuries have led to tradies downing tools for 11.2 days, with a potential loss of income of up to $4144 a year, the research shows.
With rising costs of living, almost a third of tradies admit they have pushed through pain, unable to afford the time off. “Younger tradies, particularly, will often think they are invincible (and) they can use their body in whatever way they see fit and they will bounce back,” says Hall, who has partnered with hipages to create a bespoke stretching routine to help tradies prevent injuries at work.
“I’m not suggesting the routine is the only thing that’s important (in reducing injuries) but it’s a significant component. If you were playing some kind of sport, you know you need to warm up and that’s the sort of attitude we think would make a big difference for tradies – they should think of themselves as industrial athletes.”
The stretches target areas that tradies feel pain the most, including the back, shoulders, knees and neck.
“If tradies take just 10 minutes a day to complete (these stretches), it will make a huge difference to their physical health,” Hall says.
TOOLS DOWN
Martin Nguyen, 27, has worked as a builder for the past nine years, but admits “it feels like I have done 30 years already”.
The owner of Kubra Building Services experiences constant back problems and consequently can no longer work full-time on the tools, often performing administrative tasks instead.
At times, the pain has been so constant that he has considered changing careers.
“There are maybe three or four weeks a year that I’m just bedridden,”
Nguyen says. “I’ve got two young kids and when you’ve got a two-year-old daughter who wants you to lift her up and you can’t, it’s pretty rough.”
Having seen the toll his work has taken on his body, Nguyen now requires all his workers – including subcontractors – to do 15 minutes of onsite stretching before starting work.
“Almost all of the injuries I had were 100 per cent preventable,” he says. “The physio bills have been in the thousands. And when it’s been really bad, and you can’t get out of bed and you can’t play with your family, a little bit of depression can happen.”
NOT EASY
The high injury rate for tradies is not surprising, given the constant bending, lifting and twisting they are required to do, hipages chief customer officer Stuart Tucker says. But he believes aches and pains are not an inevitable consequence of the job.
“It’s not easy being a tradie,” Tucker says. “The average perception of a tradie is that they are tough and hardworking but they need to look after themselves a little better.
“An injury means time off the tools and hipages knows the devastating impact that can have for all tradies, especially business owners.”