[EasyClean]

Jase:

you are lucky, you're only 26 so you're probably still very fit and active but as you get older you need to listen to your body telling you that those aches and pains need resting more often.
As you get older you start slowing down but fortunately get wiser through knowledge and wisdom to compensate for it.
There's no point going like a bat out of hell, non stop, working all the hours under the sun just to bugger your long term health up or work yourself into an early grave. You can't take your money with you when you pop your cloggs.

I recommend warm up exercises at the start of the day, wind down exercises at the end of the day. Healthy nutritional eating. Take plenty of short breaks during the working day, but most importantly listen to when your body is telling you that it is in pain and don't ignore the warning signs. None of us are immune to aches, pains and diseases, we all get them in the end, some people unfortunately get them sooner than others.

[trevor perry]

i have read this thread with great interest and have to disagree with most that has been said. a lot of the aches you are suffering are just due to being unfit, before starting wfp i had been involved in a body workout called fitness 4x4 the guy who developed this workout is 58 years old of a slim but firm build and yet challenges anyone of any age or size to lift 45 pound weight above head more times than he can , he has never been beaten.
  the workout he does uses all the muscles we use whilst we use wfp but with weights of upto 45ibs in each hand and he can do this non stop for over an hour at a time , after a years training i am now doing over 200 lifts with the same weight and takes about 20 minutes to complete, the advantages i have found is i can use any pole even my 40ft glass fibre one all day without even feeling any fatigue in my arms where as most i have seen need a break every 10 or 15 minutes.
  if you read his articles on his webpage you will uderstand more of what i am trying to explain and there is a video of him on a news channel doing a demonstration. his web page is www.fitness4x4.com if you then click on news scroll to bottom of page and then read his newsletters you will see that what he is acheiving is being done by a lot of people so he isnt a freak of nature.
  if any of you are going to the fed show in blackpool and are struggling with RSI i would really like to speak with you to see if doing any of these exercises helps the situation.
 

[Ian_Giles]

Good points Trevor
I've always been a fairly strong bloke, quite strong shoulders, and since starting  WFP and pushing myself hard on the high, heavy work, I've increased my stamina with regards to using WFP.
So to a point I understand and agree with you.
To build up resistance to lactic acid fatigue you have to keep experiencing it...try speed walking for about 400m (make sure no one is looking though cos you'll look a berk! )
The pain in your calves is unbelievable.
Ditto the training you have to do for tug of war, your forearms feel like they are going to explode
Ever used a Concept 2 rowing machine?
Push yourself over 2000m and you have aerobic pain and anaerobic pain to deal with.
To extend your thresholds takes effort, and to do that you have to push yourself.
Unfortunately with WFP (and trad too) the range of movement is limited and highly repetitive, often, and in particular with WFP, you are extending yourself unnaturally and unevenly on many occasions.
If you are naturally strong and robust you will cope better than those who are not with the strains of the job.
Some will discover certain weaknesses in their bodies and they will not work on the areas they need to to strengthen themselves and thereby helping to protect themselves from injury.
And it isn't remotely easy to work out what it is you actually need to do to combat or correct the problem.

for instance:

It has taken 9 years for Squeaky's body to go 'twang'

rog is excessively right handed and I'll bet that this has had a major impact on the fact he is now 'damaged goods'

his body had become unbalanced, eventually, no matter who you are, your body will turn on itself and go 'twang'
But working out what you need to do to keep your body in balance (or harmony) is beyond most of us.
And so, whether a desk jockey using a keyboard all day long, or a window cleaner using a pole all day long, we'll continue to injure ourselves as our bodies break down under the strains we put it under

Don't mind me...it's a Sunday and I'm bored..so just musing away on here


Ian

[trevor perry]

ian i understand the points you are making and can only speak from my own experiences but like you i thought i was reasonably strong and fit that is until i tried the 4x4 workout now at the age of fourty i can honestly say i am fitter and stronger than any time in my youth i also dont suffer from any stifness or sore muscles after an hard days work and whats more i can see me improving year on year for many a time yet, dragan is 58 and still improving.
  If you are attending the fed show i will bring my dumbells and give a demonstration of what is achievable in a short space of time, many phisicians have said that what dragan does is an impossibility that is until they witness it ,but dragans training works for anybody and works to get the whole body in balance so avoiding injuries.

[mark dew]

great thread.
It amazes me that wfp wc can spend 1000s on equipment, hours on the net looking to improve our lives, yet the most important business asset we have are ourselves, yet we are always last in our priorities.
It costs nothing to drink enough water and to do a few stretches at the end of the day. 10 minutes of our time is all it takes. (How many people have saved that 10 minutes many times over on each job since going wfp.)
Yet when it comes to looking after ourselves we put very little effort in. Or we spend a fortune or wait months to see a 'specialist.'  
Just 1 day lost due to aches and pains is worth a minimum £100.
We can all save ourselves a fortune for a few pennies and minutes each day.
It would be a good to see a 'sticky post' with pictures or short videos showing half a dozen or so simple exercises that we can all do without being acrobatic or healthy. 

[trevor perry]

mark you are absolutely spot on, in our job our health is the most important thing if we lose it are let it slip the money we earn soon drops and whats more if you are unhealthy or sore it is a lot harder to motivate oneself to do the work and i think that is why so many pack up only to take a job that pays less.

[neil100]

I have just read all the posts on RSI,

One thing for sure is that more W/cleaners will switch from Trad to wfp and more will suffer from RSI.

I have suffered with it badly when I switched from trad to wfp at the beginning of 2006. In my first month I had very little sleep as the pain was most extreme at night time with my hands neally doubling in size with the swelling.

I have now 15 months of experience with wfp, I work 4 or 5 days a week. I start at 8am and only stop for lunch at 1pm for 30 mins, I then work through to 5pm. I have reduced the effects of RSI greatly.

I have replaced some of my 3 and 4 story work with lower work. I organize my work so all my easy work is done at the beginning of the week, and any 3 or 4 story work is done on my last day of my weeks work, giving my body the chance to recover at weekend.

I use mostly 18’ poles with lightweight brushes on, A salmon brush mostly. On an extender pole they are extremely light and the whip effect is greatly reduced due to the lightness of the brush. I allways rinse with brush on the glass for upstairs. I use a mini pole for downstairs with a vikan brush though the weight of the brush  does not matter on the mini pole.

I have a very light grip on the pole and often clean a window just resting the pole between my thumb and forfinger. I push my hands gently into the pole this way and because my grip is on the opposite sides of the pole it stops the pole from sliding through my hands. ( I don’t know if I have explained that too well) It took a while to master the grip but it reduces a lot of pressure on the wrists.

I don’t take Ibourfen anymore.

I have been seeing a sports  Physiotherapist for 7 weeks. I went originally to see him about my lower back as it had ached for 4 months solid. It turned out it was not my spine or wfp causing my back to ache. It was that the muscles in my lower back were locked solid, It was caused by trad wc when up a ladder I used to lock my legs an hips for balance so I could reach out to clean windows. That mixed with 5 a side football. That problem is well on the way to sorting itself out. But it was his claim to cure RSI in my hands wrists and elbows that I have been seeing him for.

He has reduced the RSI Greatly. It now only effects me if I have a heavy week at work. And that is only Friday or Thursday nights. I have not had any pain for the last 2 weeks.

He has given me certain excercices that stretch the muscles in the neck and shoulders. He claims most of the problems occur near the neck and spine as  the muscles knot up and effect the nerve endings and channels that go down to the wrists . They have a lot of office workers who come to them with RSI.

I don’t know If ever I will be truly cured, time will tell, But if seeing a Physio helps me manage the pain so it gives me little trouble then it will be money well spent.

I feel a lot of empathy for others who are suffering with RSI, but there are steps you can take to reduce the pain. IE, wear a wrist support, A surgical one, they have a metal plate in so the wrist can only move so far over, I have modified it so I could use it for work in my early days of wfp. I only use it now a couple of nights a week when I go to bed.

Nel

[AuRavelling79]

This is an excellent thread and all the points are worth considering. But to some extent there is "luck of the draw".

(EG - my Mum's got a couple of friends - one is 68, the other is 69. Both are not overweight and non-smokers - yet one looks ten years older and is usually in a wheelchair or struggling along on two sticks and has just developed Parkinson's disease - the other looks ten years younger and she is trim, uptogether and walks miles.)

I suppose we should all do the best we can with what we've got - healthwise.

[Jeff Brimble]

I take Extra strength Rose hip syrup capsules, do warm up excercises etc. Use Ibuferen when its bad to relax it and rest it when its enflamed. I reccomend the use of a Putnams type pillow a few nights a week to rest my neck.
When using the poles I keep my lower hand below my waist when posible to lessen shoulder joint movement and stand further back. This is easier with the fishing poles. I went to a osteo practitioner (there being no sports therapists here) to find the best excercises for my shoulders, Basically resistance extercises using your own arms and body in oppostition movements.
here are some more links.
http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=18135.0
http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=19716.0
http://www.cotswoldcleaningandmaintenance.co.uk/shinersforum/viewtopic.php?t=60& amp;sid=3e34c7fda4b76ec4a6d5d3f9fb18deea
http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=20400.0#
Backpacks & Aches
http://www.anotherforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1148488730  (copy and paste cleaning pros in the title instead of anotherforum as theres too much stuff to bring over)
PAIN http://www.anotherforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1150205802/0
Tennis Elbow http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=23248.0
 
Age and body reaction http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=29855.0 Dec 2006

Hope this helps and good luck, although you get to realise that you have to take responsibility.

[dai]

One of the first things most of us learned when we started in window cleaning, was to be ambidextrous. Most of us are equally happy, using either hand for squeegee work.
I think it's important that we learn to use the pole in the same manner. Change leading hands frequently, this helps to build up a better balance of muscle tone.
Like Ian Giles, I am fortunate to have a strong upper body, but strong upper body doesn't mean strong lower back. I would not recommend juggling 45lb weights unless you build up to it slowly. I used to do this with two 56lb weights, and suffered with lower back pain for years in consequence. Dai