WORKERS STRETCH, STAY HEALTHY TOGETHER
Stretch and flex sessions help prevent injury, supervisors say.
As the sun rises on a chilly Monday morning, 70 construction workers wearing yellow safety vests and hard hats simultaneously bend and touch their toes.
They swing their arms; they kick one leg out and stretch their hamstrings. And when they’ve finished their roughly 10-minute exercise session, which unfolds on the median of Texas 71, they pile into trucks and disperse, now primed to swing hammers, climb ladders, operate heavy machinery and haul rock as part of a project to add tollways to a 2.5-mile stretch of roadway.
Supervisors at McCarthy Building Companies say they’ve led short exercise sessions at the beginning of work shifts on road construction projects for years. The sessions are standard operating procedure at Texas Department of Transportation job sites — and in TxDOT offices downtown, too.
“It’s a way to prepare our crews for the day, both physically and mentally,” says Brent Green, safety manager for McCarthy Building Companies, the contractor on the project east of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. “Since we began our flex and stretch routine we haven’t had any soft tissue injuries at all, and in the construction industry they count for a lot of significant injuries — especially back injuries.”
The workers don’t seem to mind, either. They form a circle and dip and fold in unison, boots clomping. If someone isn’t fully participating, other workers call him or her out.
“I think everybody realizes it makes sense, and the benefits of doing it,” Green says. “This is their chosen career. It’s no different than athletes. They don’t just get out there and start playing — if they did, their career would be over. Their families depend on them.”
On Mondays, the entire crew gathers in one place, in the shadow of a highway overpass, to exercise. The session follows the weekly safety briefing. Individual crews exercise separately every other day of the week. Participants say the quick, simple routine warms up muscles for a day of lifting, climbing ladders, walking long distances, hammering and using power tools and hand tools.