Preventing Workplace Injury as a Barista: a guide

A while back, Kody reached out to me to discuss workplace injuries among baristi. He offered to write this guest post to hopefully help baristi avoid pain and injury. This post is strictly educational, and not medical advice. I am grateful to Kody for his generosity and his patience while waiting for me to publish this post.

-Scott

My name is Kody Johnson D.C. I am a Chiropractor board certified in electrodiagnostic medicine (used to diagnose nerve issues like carpal tunnel), and interestingly the only other work I have had is in the third-wave coffee industry. Having worked for both third-wave shops and roasters, the first decade of my professional career consisted of working around, using, and cleaning a number of different espresso machines and coffee roasters. As such, I am intimately familiar with the biomechanics, ergonomics, and research surrounding working in the coffee industry.  Today we are going to look at a practical approach to preventing pain in the workplace. Now, full disclosure, there isn’t a ton of research on ergonomics within the coffee industry; what is available will be referenced, but some information will be pulled from other industries. The information presented here is strictly educational. Specific health issues should be addressed with a healthcare professional. With that being said, lets dive in!

1. Stay Active 

Many problems that we face as baristas can be avoided by simply having an active lifestyle. No, being a barista does not count as being active. Yes, being a barista is a physically demanding job, but that is not a substitute for physical activity. Physical activity is a recommendation that has remained consistent for the prevention of low back pain among workers. Even a recommendation like avoiding repetitious bending at the waist is not a clear-cut solution for occupational back pain, but exercise has remained consistent. This is particularly important when roughly 1/3 baristas report back pain related to their work.

2. Avoid Manual Tamps if Possible

Manual tamping is fine for home use, however, consistently using a standard manual tamp, puts excess force on the forearm, shoulder, neck, and back. This excess force makes it a suboptimal candidate for shop use. Ideally, a lever-based tamper or automated tamper would be the tool of choice either as a stand-alone entity or as an attachment available on some commercial grinders. If a manual tamper is desired, a flat palm-based tamper would be preferred to the traditional “T” shaped tamp. I know that last statement can be controversial, as people love their tamp of choice. There was a study done that looked at the force distribution, hand posture, and trunk posture that found palm-based tampers were less stressful in every category observed. Biomechanically, this makes sense as well. Given how much forceful gripping the average barista does, using a palm-based tamp would give the finger flexors a break, while a traditional tamp would still require use of the finger flexors. Additionally, it is difficult to tamp with a traditional tamp without using the shoulder to lift the arm away from the body. This action (called abduction), is used so frequently with portafilter use, pouring milk into pitchers, steaming milk, pouring drinks,  and cleaning milk pitchers that giving the shoulder a break from this motion for a different motion puts less repetitive stress on the shoulder. 

3. Death to Death Grips

Many of the hand and wrist problems in the barista world can be predominantly linked to forceful grips and forceful exaggerated movements in the wrist. Both grip and excess movements have been linked to Carpal Tunnel and epicondylitis. At every point when using your portafilter, avoid using a death grip. Keep a loose grip on the portafilter at all times, even when securing the portafilter into the machine. The same logic applies to removing the puck from the portafilter. Keep a loose grip and let gravity do the work to remove the used puck. Forceful slamming gives unnecessary stress to your wrist, and over time can lead to pain. Improper tamping and portafilter use has been shown to directly influence pain in baristas.

4. Steam With Your Eyes Not Your Neck

Work related neck pain has been linked with consistent neck flexion, especially when combined with shoulder movements.  This presents a problem because steaming milk combines both shoulder movement and neck flexion. Likewise pouring drinks also uses similar motions, consistent neck flexion with associated shoulder movement.  In general, try to keep the arms tucked into the body when steaming and look down with your eyes not your neck. If possible, make sure the machine is high enough to avoid using excess bending of the neck to look down.

5. Take Care of Your Mind

Any talk about neck and low back pain always needs to include a section on stress management. Stress/mental health are frequently associated with low back pain and neck pain. This is particularly important for a field that has both customer service components and physical stress components. Talking with a therapist or your primary care physician about treatment options for depression/anxiety is always a great idea.

6. Dress for Function not Style

Lastly, constant standing has been linked with multiple health conditions including low-back pain and leg pain. Because baristas spend a majority, if not all of their day on their feet, priority should be given to shoes that provide comfort and support rather than style. Addition of cushioned mats to stand on has also shown to be helpful in a similar manner.

The coffee community is a caring and passionate community of people that pose unique healthcare challenges. It has been my pleasure to be in your midst over the course of my life. I hope you find this information helpful to you as a barista or as a shop manager in facilitating the health of your workers. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I do hope that the above topics prove useful and hopefully I will be writing a part two here soon. 

Kody can be contacted at kodyjohnson2395@gmail.com or on Instagram @drdarthdarkseid