What is an athlete anyways?
According to Dictionary.com, an athlete (N) is a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport or exercise or game requiring physical skill.
If you change the words sport, exercise, game or contest and replace them with the words trade or occupation this then becomes an accurate definition of an industrial athlete.
While these are examples of obviously physically demanding trades and occupations, there are others that also require stamina, endurance, and repetitive activities that we may not normally think of.
Some of these include:
Sporting athletes train, practice, and maintain themselves for two main reasons. To improve their performance, and also prevent injury which would impact their ability to perform their sport. They also typically have a team to help with this.
Industrial athletes may have access to improve their skills and knowledge for their trade or occupation, but the support for their main tools (their body) is not given enough emphasis or support.
This lack of maintenance and support can lead to a number of issues that can be prevented. Repetitive use injuries, sprains, strains, other injuries or occupational hazards lead to reduced performance, time lost for these industrial athletes, as well as sometimes shorter career lengths, disability, and other conditions (chronic pain, hernias, carpal tunnel to name a few). And because they are not always seen as athletes, industrial athletes may lack proper self-care,
Industrial Athletes need a team to help them maintain themselves in top physical condition for whichever trade or occupation they are in. An electrician needs good manual dexterity, but repetitive motions need to be countered with physical care.
Insulators routinely work in tight awkward spaces and need adequate stretching and exercise to maintain pain free movement. Drivers spend long periods of time in the same position in their vehicles and also need maintenance.
In addition to good nutrition, proper rest, and exercise, there are a few things that can make a huge improvement.
Here at Human Integrated Performance we want to help Industrial Athletes to:
Believe
Perform
Achieve
Recover
Learn more about our massage services here.
Come see us and discover how we can help you do just that!