Watched a strapped-up Venus Williams demolish her opponents this year at Wimbledon? Despite a sore left knee, she stormed into the finals, where sister Serena got the better of her. The knee support she wore helped keep her in the game. “That’s the life of an athlete. Tape and ice and all,” she said, as she soldiered on through the pain.
Closer home, we see cricketers strap on elbow guards, thigh supports, knee pads, back braces and so on, more often in expectation of injury rather than just after it.
For sportspersons, using such supports as protective gear is almost second nature, just as sprains and injuries are an inevitable part of their careers.
Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint
Yet, even the most sedentary professionals have negotiated painful moments with ankle supports, wrist wraps or neck collars. Statistics show that backache affects 80% of adults at least once in their lifetime. In our new gadget-driven existence, carpal tunnel syndrome in wrists, BlackBerry thumbs, spondylosis and back strain are all too common.
But can belting up prevent injuries? A plethora of lumbar belts, posture braces, knee pads and wrist wraps now carry claims of prevention on the Net, in ergonomic office equipment stores and on teleshopping channels. And software workers, desk-job holders, frequent travellers and golfers are the target audience.
A small 2003 pilot study by the department of industrial engineering and management, Ming-Chi Institute of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, had people perform data entry jobs for an hour while wearing or not wearing a new type of back belt. The researchers’ conclusion: “The new belt seemed to provide support for the back by the counter-supporting force from the knees. The results suggest that (it) may be useful in seated tasks because of its maintenance of lumbar lordosis and erect trunk.” In other words, it may aid posture.
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In the early 1990s, several companies in the US, from grocery store chains to kindergartens, braced their employees for tasks involving bending and lifting by investing in wide elastic belts fastened by Velcro. The assumption: Additional support would protect them from back injuries. The most famous instance was home improvement retailer Home Depot’s back support use policy. A 1996 University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health study of 36,000 Home Depot workers found lower back injuries reduced by 30% after it mandated the belts.
This reversed the findings of a 1994 study at the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh), which concluded that “the effectiveness of using back belts to lessen the risk of back injury among uninjured workers remains unproven”. Niosh continued its studies till 1998, though, and stuck to its guns.