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Archive for March, 2012

California Weather Comes to Tinley Forest Perserve Near Chicago in March, 2012!

Posted in Fitness, Health and Wellness, Nature and Stress, tagged , , , on March 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

By Sue Shekut, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

Everyone in Chicago is remarking how unusually warm the weather is this march. We are experiencing 80 degree F  days and sun, sun, sun. Not your usually March fare for us Northerners. But this Sunday. my man and I took advantage of the lovely weather and grabbed our bikes for our first bike ride of the season…at Tinley Creek Forest Preserves. Tinley Creek has a paved bike trail and the Red loop is about 9 miles. You can add a route to other nearby Forest Preserves for a longer ride or you can bike a portion of the loop for a shorter ride if you need to.

We did the full loop and my odometer showed we did a reasonably long ride for our maiden voyage: 10.88 miles. Not bad and  nice way to warm up the body after the winter!

BMX biking at Tinley Creek Forest Preserves. Image by J. Porys.

The Red loop was our bike trail. About 9 miles for the entire loop at Tinley Creek Forest Preserves. Image by J. Porys.

The wind in my hair, the path is clear, I take my first ride of the year at Tinley Creek! Image by J. Porys.

Buds on the trees, a slow moving stream, green grass growing tall and proud. It feels like California, but it's Chicago in March! Image by J. Porys.

Tinley's bike trail crosses a few sturdy bridge, I slant into the curves of the path. Image by J. Porys.

Clear blue skies with a hint of clouds in Tinley gives us a scenic ride. Image by Sue Shekut.

I hope off my bike to take more pics! (and let my glut muscles catch a break from the bike seat!) My photographer boyfriend does his best to capture the scene form his angle. Image by Sue Shekut.

As the sun sets, it sends shards of light into this forest, making it look almost haunted! Image by Sue Shekut.

Total Miles biked = 10.88 by the time we reached our car. Image by Sue Shekut

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Tips and Fixes for Office Chair Arm Rest Ergonomics

Posted in Health and Wellness, Workplace Wellness, tagged , , , , on March 5, 2012| 4 Comments »

By Sue Shekut, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

Recently I helped a client adjust her chair to better reach the arm rests of her chair to reduce tension in her neck and shoulders. She had done a fantastic job of repositioning her monitors and keyboard, but we found that her arm rest height was too low for her to rest her arms comfortably on the chair as she worked.

 

Arm rest positions. Image from OHSA website.

After we found some potential fixes for her workstation, I thought I’d share some resources with Working Well Resource readers in case you are having similar problems with your chair. For starters, if your arm rest are not adjustable and you can’t reach them, you may need arm rest pads or a new chair. If you do not have a way to rest your arms as you work on your desk or computer keyboard, your poor shoulders have to hold your arms up all day. That may not seem like a big deal, but think about it, if you went tot he gym and had to hold a 5-pound weight or even a 1-pound weight up in front of you for 8 hours, your arms would be exhausted!  And you likely wouldn’t even be able to hold the weight for that long no matter how strong you are. But that is what many of us expect our bodies to do at work.

Ergononmic Resources for Arm Rests

OSHA has some of the best information about workstation ergonomics and office chairs here. 

, from About.com Guide, has great tips on office chair ergonomics in her article, Before You Decide on Office Chair Arm Rest Adjustments. This post describes optimum settings to adjust your chair for the most ergonomic Arm Rest Height, arm rest width and rm rest pivot as well as how to handle Non-Adjustable Armrests and the Armless Chair.

And here is a great tutorial from Prometheus Training Corporation, explaining self assessment tools you can use to determine if your workstation is set up as ergonomically as possible.  The video is a bit dry, but the graphics and information presented is excellent!

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