Back, wrist and thumb during peak season: how to keep up with packing
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by Verpakkingdeals.nl
6 min reading time
Not one heavy box but three hundred repetitions of the same movement causes complaints at the packing table. Here’s how to adjust your working height, lifting, and tools before the autumn peak begins.
If you're packing ten packages a day, you won't notice it. But forty? That's when you feel a nagging lower back, a thumb stiff from tearing tape, and a wrist that tingles in the evening. The autumn peak starts in mid-October and continues well into December, and most complaints at a packing station aren't due to one heavy box, but to the same movement performed three hundred times. This article is about what you can change about your workspace and tools before that peak begins.
Start with the height of your table
The most important dial you can turn is the working height. A kitchen or dining table is around 74 cm; a workbench where you pack standing up should be closer to your elbow. The rule of thumb: for standing work, use a surface that ends approximately 5 to 10 cm below your elbow, so your forearms remain horizontal and your shoulders stay low.
If you're stuck with the table you have, you can help yourself with a simple elevation. Two sturdy, sealed boxes under a board or a cutting mat can add ten centimetres. An Action Moving Box measuring 480x430x330 mm (50 litres) costs €3.50 and is sturdy enough for this purpose. If you work sitting down, choose the opposite: raise your chair, place your feet on an elevation, and bring the package closer to you.
Lifting: what the standard says and doesn't say
There is no legal maximum weight you are allowed to lift. What there is, however, is the principle that work should not pose a health risk, and a calculation method — the NIOSH method — used by the Dutch Labour Inspectorate. According to the Arboportaal, this is a maximum of 23 kilos under ideal conditions, and the weight is lower when conditions are not ideal: further from your body, higher or lower than hip height, with a twist, or frequently in succession.
At a packing table, conditions are rarely ideal. Practically, this means:
Don't place boxes with supplies on the floor or above shoulder height, but between knee and hip height.
Don't fill a bundle or bin more than you can comfortably lift at once; two half bins are better than one full one.
Turn with your feet instead of your torso. The combination of lifting and twisting is a classic cause of back problems.
Store large deliveries at the edge of the space and restock hourly, instead of dragging everything in one go.
The thumb: tape and cutting
Tearing tape by hand is the most repetitive movement of your entire day, and the most strenuous for your thumb and wrist. A dispenser eliminates that movement. The Kinzo Tape Dispenser with 2 Rolls costs €9.95 and pays for itself in comfort, not in time.
For opening deliveries and trimming cardboard, the same principle applies: use a knife, not scissors. Cutting cardboard requires much more force per action. Kinzo Utility Knives, 3 pieces cost €1.95, the Utility Knife Set of 8 pieces €4.95, and the loose Utility Knives 3 Pieces also €4.95. Replace a dull blade immediately: dull cutting requires more pushing force, and that's precisely where things go wrong, both for your wrist and your fingers. Always cut away from your body and put the knife down with the blade retracted, not open next to the tape.
Keep everything within reach
Every time you have to reach, stretch, or bend, you make an extra movement that you will repeat hundreds of times that day. Therefore, place the four things you need for each package in a semicircle in front of you: boxes, void fill, tape, knife. Anything you grab less than ten times a day can be further away.
Void fill material should be on a roll holder or in a fixed spot next to you, not on the floor. A Bubble Wrap Roll of 500 mm x 500 m (€12.95) is too large to lift repeatedly — set it down once properly and pull off. For a smaller workspace, Green Bubble Wrap 50 x 500 cm for €5.00 is sufficient.
If you work with fixed box sizes, this also saves physical effort: less searching, less lifting, less trying on for size. A Cardboard Shipping Box 15x15x15 cm costs €1.99, and for those who send many flat items, letterbox boxes are sufficient: Recycled Letterbox Box A6, bundle of 100 for €17.95 or the A5+ variant, bundle of 100 for €24.00. An additional benefit: letterbox boxes weigh little, so you lift less.
Alternate instead of pushing through
Repetitive work at the same rhythm is a strain in itself, according to the Arboportaal, regardless of weight. The answer is not to work harder and take a long break later, but to alternate. Divide your day into blocks and switch posture and actions:
Block
Action
Posture
1
Picking and preparing orders
Walking
2
Folding boxes and taping bottoms
Standing
3
Packing and filling
Standing or sitting
4
Labeling and administration
Sitting
Those who work in batches will naturally maintain this rhythm. Short breaks to loosen your hands and shoulders are more effective than one half-hour break at the end of the afternoon.
Complaint, cause, adjustment
What you feel
Probable cause
First adjustment
Lower back, end of day
Table too low, bending to reach supplies
Raise surface, supplies at hip height
Thumb and wrist
Tearing tape by hand
Use a dispenser
Shoulders and neck
Surface too high or reaching too far
Place materials closer
Fingers and forearm
Dull blade, too much pushing force
Replace blade, adjust cutting direction
If you experience persistent complaints, consult a general practitioner or company doctor — this article is about workstation setup, not treatment.
Arrange it before the peak
The adjustments above together cost less than an hour and a few tens of euros: an elevation under your surface, a dispenser, a box of fresh blades, void fill in a fixed spot, and a fixed sequence of actions. Do that in September or early October, not in the week when orders are flooding in — then you won't have time for it.
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