Experimental Study of Muscle Fatigue in a Standing Work Posture

Fatigue can directly affect a worker’s health. Using experimental analysis, we investigated whether a standing chair can reduce fatigue and how to optimize the design of work conditions for standing staff. Ten college students were selected to participate in fatigue comparative experiments. We scored the subjects’ feelings and evaluated the subjects’ muscle fatigue using a surface electromyogram (EMG) of the subject’s leg muscles. There was significant difference in fatigue between standing posture and sitting/leaning postures. There was no significant difference between a sitting posture and leaning posture. Surface EMG showed that a leaning posture had the lowest fatigue for the three postures. The appropriate selection of an auxiliary chair can assist workers in effectively reducing muscle fatigue, even more than an ordinary office chair.