Manual material handling (MMH) tasks such as weight lifting are very common in many industries. The effect of hand load on lumbar-pelvic continuous relative phase (CRP) coordination during lifting was investigated in this study. Twelve male subjects performed sagittal symmetric lifting tasks with or without load in hand; meanwhile lumbar kinematics data were recorded. Results of the current study demonstrated a significant difference of lumbar-pelvic coordination between the two conditions. Subjects tended to show more in-phase CRP pattern when lifting a load. Also, when lifting a load subjects’ lumbar-pelvic motion pattern made their torso generated larger loading on the L5/S1 joint. The findings of this study can be used to better understand how hand load influences lifting biomechanics.
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