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Big gains from offering exercise during working hours

Published by
October 22, 2019

It is not only in office workplaces that employees exercise during working hours. Workplaces with more physically demanding work have also put exercise on the agenda.

Today is Workplace Fitness Day. This is the fifth year in a row that this day before the fall holidays, previously reserved for school pupils' exercise day, has also become Workplace Exercise Day. The fact that Danish workplaces have begun to take exercise during working hours seriously is shown by the National Research Center for the Working Environment's (NFA) latest survey of the Danish working environment.

The new figures show that more Danes have the opportunity to exercise at work. For example, 22% of Danish employees are offered exercise activities such as stretching and back exercises at work.

Evidence for exercise in the workplace

Lars L. Andersen, Professor of Pain in Muscles and Joints at NFA, is one of the researchers who has contributed to this development with his research. Among other things, he has shown that exercising with elastic bands, for example, reduces and prevents pain in the workplace, and that it is effective to do so in the workplace.

"Exercising during working hours with colleagues can reduce neck, shoulder and back pain effectively and quickly. It also improves work ability and social interaction. We know this partly because we have conducted more than ten studies in Danish workplaces, all of which point in the same direction," he says on the NFA website.

And it is not only in office workplaces that pulling on the elastic bands is useful. It also applies to workplaces with more physical work, Lars L. Andersen emphasizes.

Read about the report Working Environment and Health 2018 in the newsletter from the National Research Center for the Working Environment