All day long you sit in your per­fectly designed chair with your feet on the floor and your com­puter at eye level. Your arms are sup­ported by arm rests that allow your wrists per­fect access to the key­board that is springy and light to the touch.

When you do leave work you adjust the head rest in your car to sup­port your back and neck prop­erly and make sure your rear-view mir­ror is at the right place so you can see with­out turn­ing your head awk­wardly. Pulling in your dri­ve­way, you can’t wait to kick off your safety shoes, slump back in your recliner and leave all the ergonom­ics behind. Until you notice the spat­ula with the back­wards han­dle in your kitchen and the dog bowl sit­ting in its cor­rect posi­tion holder. Ergonom­ics has fol­lowed you home.

Ergo Gardening

No longer just some­thing to think about for fac­tory and office work­ers, a grow­ing num­ber of com­pa­nies has designed tools for daily life with ergonomic fea­tures. Lifewithease.com is a com­pany that has tools for almost any­thing that needs to be done around the yard.

Each of these light-weight tools has a sup­port arm so the arm and wrist can be held at an appro­pri­ate angle, a bicy­cle grip on the han­dle so you don’t have to squeeze or grasp the han­dle with too small a cir­cum­fer­ence, and some even have exten­sions so you can do your work stand­ing up and avoid back strain. They also have prun­ing shears designed with ratchet clips so the tool gen­er­ates the power to cut, not the hand. Gar­den­ing is good for the soul, but now it’s good for the body too.

Cook­ing Ergonomically

Pots, pans and uten­sils are usu­ally designed with the food in mind, but a grow­ing num­ber of cook­ware spe­cial­ists have started design­ing them for the ease of peo­ple as well. The pots and pans in Rachel Ray’s line of cook­ware all have thick orange rounded foam han­dles to make their eas­ier to hold and maneu­ver around the kitchen. Furi, the knife maker, has begun to tai­lor the han­dles of their knives as well to meet the demands of souse chefs and house­hold cooks. A web­site called lifesolutionsplus.com car­ries a full like of kitchen aids to help peo­ple pour, chop, slice and stir in ways bet­ter for their hands and arms. For peo­ple with arthri­tis or repet­i­tive motion injuries as well as peo­ple try­ing to pre­vent them, these prod­ucts are a real life saver.

Pet Dynamics

Even Rover and Fluffy have a sci­en­tist look­ing out for them these days as we have learned its not just humans that have mus­cle and joint con­cerns. Wetnoz.com sells ergonom­i­cally sound din­ner bowls, mats and toys for dogs and cats. The bowls are ele­vated and angled to pro­mote bet­ter diges­tion. This can be impor­tant for larger dogs who are prone to stom­ach and intesti­nal prob­lems. They also sell ergonom­i­cally designed toys for hours of safe and fun play.

As we con­tinue to under­stand how our bod­ies must be taken care of in order to live longer, health­ier lives, we find the sci­ence of ergonom­ics more immersed than ever into the prod­ucts we pur­chase. Ergonom­ics is not just for work­ers anymore.

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