Manual materials handling (MMH) tasks or unaided acts of lifting, lowering, carrying, pushing, and pulling are common types of activities in industry. Design and organization of work involving manual handling of materials has been the goal of many researchers. Their attempts have resulted in information that can be objectively used in designing manual materials handling tasks. The main objectives of this paper are (1) to review and evaluate existing energy and cardiac cost prediction models for various MMH tasks, (2) to present these models in a concise fashion that can be easily accessed by designers and practitioners of MMH, and (3) to provide recommendations for future research in modeling physiological responses of individuals engaged in MMH. More emphasis is placed on information that has become available since the publication of the NIOSH guide on work practices for Manual lifting.
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