How to Calculate Lifting Index Strength

When manual lifting is part of your job, it's important to know how much you can exert before you possibly injure yourself. According to the National Safety Council, more than 30 percent of workplace injuries are due to overexertion. To reduce lifting-related injuries, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health developed a lifting index, which can help you determine if you have the strength to perform a specific lifting task.

Instructions

• 1

  Weigh the object being lifted. As an example, a concrete block weighs 50 pounds.

• 2

  Determine the Recommended Weight Limit (RWL) for the object. RWL is the weight of an object that any healthy worker could lift without developing low back pain. Contact your health and safety department for the RWL of a particular object. As an example, the RWL for the concrete block is 60 pounds.

• 3

  Divide the weight of the object by the RWL to determine the lifting index. In the example, dividing 50 by 60 equals 0.83. Because the lifting index is below 1, you will have the strength to lift the concrete block if you don't have any pre-existing injuries. If the lifting index was greater than 1, you wouldn't have the proper strength to lift the block and you would be at an increased risk for developing low back pain.