Cart Pushing Capabilities for Males and Females: An Update

Abstract

The purpose of this experiment was to compare the differences in maximum acceptable forces of a 7.6 m pushing task at a frequency of 1 min^-1 between a high-inertia pushcart and our criterion magnetic particle brake treadmill push task (Snook and Ciriello, 1991). Thirty female and 22 male industrial workers performed both a pushcart and a treadmil pushing task in the context of four larger experiments. The results revealed that maximum acceptable sustained forces of pushing on the pushcart were essentially identical to our magnetic particle brake treadmill data whereas the maximal acceptable initial forces were 7% to 15% higher than the criterion for males and females respectively. These findings may indicate that adjustments to our maximum acceptable sustained force data may not be necessary, however, maximum acceptable initial forces may present conservative estimates.