Lasting Effects of Workplace Strength Training for Neck/Shoulder/Arm Pain among Laboratory Technicians: Natural Experiment with 3-Year Follow-Up

Figure 1

It shows the time course of training in the public and private sector companies, respectively. Blue colors define the controlled study period and red the natural experiment. The white blocks are periods where no guided training was offered at the companies. The controlled study was separated in two 20-week training blocks: first block with a training and control group and second block where the control group was offered the same intervention (cross-over design). The initial training group was allowed to carry on training during the whole controlled study period. After the controlled study the public sector company had a long break before training was restarted using the initial training program in a slightly modified version. At the private sector company nine different training programs were used throughout the natural experiment as described in Section 3. Hence, program 1 differed at the two companies despite the same coloring in the figure (see text for further explanation).