Maximum voluntary strengths of male adults in some lifting, pushing and pulling activities

Abstract

Maximum voluntary isometric strengths of 29 healthy adult males were measured in 120 activities representative of manual materials handling tasks which may cause back injuries. Forces in 6 different directions were applied using 1 or both hands in 8 body positions, of which 6 were asymmetric about the sagittal plane. Strength means over all subjects varied from 74 to 386 N, depending on the task, with corresponding standard deviations from 24 to 157 N. Suggestions are made to improve the conduct of future additional studies of this nature.