Vacuuming with Less Effort - Dance with your vacuum cleaner

Vacuuming is not an easy job, especially over the carpet. In this episode, we are going to talk about how we should move with the vacuum cleaner with higher efficiency. If you are working in housekeeping and looking for a way to work with less ache, this is the episode for you! Please feel free to join our FREE Facebook group by searching "Painfree Housekeeper" if you have any questions about housekeeping safety.   If you have any question, feel free to email at  info@strainlesswork.com // Website //Free download of Common Housekeeping Musculoskeletal Disorders List //Instagram //Facebook Private Group
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Transcript

Hello, everyone. Today's episode  — Vacuuming with less effort - dancing with a vacuum cleaner. I'm your host Daisy. 

Today I'm going to share with you how to vacuum a guest room with less effort and higher efficiency and, most important of all, without risking your shoulder. 

So what is a safety zone? Here we're referring to the range that your shoulder can move with less stress.

That means there are much lower chances of aches, even if you keep the pose for a longer time or higher repetitions. 

Imagine on a rainy day you have an umbrella in your hand. 

Now you have a friend who's like a head taller than you, and now your shoulder would start to feel ache if you're the one holding the umbrella because you're putting a shoulder out of the safety zone while you're holding it up, I would call it the Red Zone.

You have to stretch your shoulder so far, you don't want your friend to get wet. So you have to hold it there for quite some time until, like five minutes later, your taller friend finally offers to hold the umbrella. Wow, You can take a break. 

We don't want the red zone, it hurts. The red zone is a range of movements where you might strain your muscle over repetitions, over a prolonged time. 

Okay, back to vacuuming.

The plane of motion is more complicated now.

You need to clean up the mess under the bed, biscuits under the table. Hair strands under the sink. 

How to stay away from the red zone and keep your shoulder pain free? Simple. 

All you need to do is to treat your vacuum cleaner like your dancing partner. You Like your partner. Yes, you can imagine it's your loved one, you two move together. 

The key is ‘dance with your vacuum cleaner’. When you step forward your partner step back.

When you step back, your partner steps forward.

In this way, It would never be like most new room attendants who would stand still, out-stretching their arms, reaching every possible corner without moving the body.

Here is the thing. 

If you're trying to dance with it, your elbows are slightly bent, without the need to out-stretch your shoulder. Instead, you navigate the machine to stay where you can move the vacuum hose in an effective range. In this way, there's almost no chance that you would hurt your shoulder, elbow, and your wrist.

No matter how many years of work experience you have in housekeeping, you don't have to change your working style. All you need is to install this concept into your technique. I respect housekeeping room attendants.

Their hard work, their focus, their caring are my motivation to create this podcast to share with fellow coworkers. If you're working as a room attendant and listening now, I would like to invite you to drop me any questions on our free Facebook page. 

Let me know your challenge at work. I would try to have a look and see if we can tackle it by ergonomics and other health care tips that I know of. Simply search Facebook ‘Pain-free housekeeper’ where you can find information in the podcast description.

 I'm Daisy Kwok, host of this podcast ‘Housekeeping Ergonomics that retains Manpower’. Please subscribe to the podcast if you want to stay in touch with me. Until then, take care. Housekeeping Ergonomics that retains Manpower is a production by Strainless Work.