Determination of maximum acceptable weight of lift by adult Indian female workers

A study on maximum acceptable weight limit (MAWL) was conducted on ten adult Indian female building construction workers (CW) and eight household workers (HW), following the psychophysical methodology. All these workers were in the age group of 28–32 years. In this study, three different body heights (i.e. knee, waist and maximum reach) in sagittal plane were considered. The lifting frequency was fixed at 1 lift min−1. The subjects were instructed to lift the load from the ground. Each set of experiments was conducted for 45 min work period using free-style lifting technique. Subjects were using a load container with no handle, which is typically used in the field. Both the working heart rates (WHR) and pause heart rates (with 4.4 s interval) were collected for the entire duration. The subjects were requested to rate their perceived exertion level after each load adjustment. The average MAWL working heart rates of CW group are 106.2(±8.3), 108.7(±9.3) and 106.8(±11.0) beats min−1 for knee, waist and maximum reach heights, where the load levels were estimated as 18.2(±0.8), 17.4(±1.4) and 16.3(±1.2) kg, respectively. For HW group, the MAWL working heart rates obtained were 101.3(±8.0), 99.6(±6.2) and 105.2(±6.1) beats min−1 for knee, waist and maximum reach heights and the corresponding load levels were 15.4(±0.5), 14.4(±0.7) and 13.9(±1.2) kg, respectively. Both the groups psychophysically rated the work in moderate to heavy category. A best-fit curve was obtained from average normalized baseline pause heart rates with work duration (t) as Avg. N.H.R.base=k.tα. It has been observed that with extrapolation of the work duration to 8 h from 45 min experimental observation, the heart rate would increase to about 6–8 beats min−1 for both the groups of workers. This equation can be used to approximate the effect of work-duration on heart rate.© Elsevie