Digging deeper...

What is hergonomic™?

Hergonomic™ simply means ergonomic, for women.

Ergonomic = “designed for maximum comfort, efficiency, safety, and ease of use, especially in the workplace.” (Encarta Dictionary) So hergonomic™ tools and equipment are those designed to be easiest, safest, most comfortable and most effective for women.

Why is (h)ergonomics important?

Tools & equipment help make our lives easier, by allowing us to accomplish tasks that would be difficult or impossible to do without them. But if they don’t fit, tools & equipment can also make our lives harder, by causing or contributing to injuries and disabilities – including chronic problems such as musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), of which lower back pain is the most common. MSDs are widespread everywhere & are considered “near-epidemic” in agriculture.

Risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders include: (National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health)

• Heavy physical work
• Lifting and forceful movements
• Bending and twisting (awkward postures)
• Whole-body vibration
• Highly repetitive tasks (especially problematic if your body is in a non-neutral -- bent or twisted -- position.)

How can we reduce these risk factors? One of the best ways is to redesign tools using the principles of ergonomics. (U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention)

Why hergonomic™ instead of simply ergonomic?

Women’s bodies are significantly different from men’s. For example, compared with men women have:

• 40-75% less upper-body strength
• 5-30% less lower-body strength
• Smaller stature (avg. female 5” shorter than avg. male)
• More adipose tissue
• Narrower shoulders
• Wider hips
• Proportionally shorter legs & arms
• Smaller grips, grip strength 50-67% that of males
• Greater flexibility
• Lower center of gravity

This means a tool that is “ergonomic” for men is not necessary ergonomic (comfortable, safe, efficient and easy to use) for women. 

Hergonomic is a term trademarked by Green Heron Tools. Why?

• We are the only company in the world working to scientifically design agricultural and gardening-related tools and equipment that are specifically (& ergonomically) for women.
• Ergo, ours are the only truly hergonomic™ tools!
• Liz’s childhood friend Val Eisley Morick – wordsmith extraordinaire -- was the only one clever enough to come up with the term.

Could hergonomic™ tools work well for men, too?

Hergonomic™ tools may work well for some men, particularly older men or those of smaller stature. This is similar to the suitability for women of some tools that were designed for the “general population” (which usually means for men, or for some “average” person whose height, strength etc. are more similar to a man’s than a woman’s) but that ended up working for women anyway. An example is Asian-made cutting tools, which are built for a population generally smaller than Caucasians and therefore end up fitting many women’s (generally smaller) hands.

In other words, hergonomic™ = good for women, but does not necessarily = bad for men.

Proper shoveling technique

When you shovel, you lift, bend & often twist – movements that put you at risk for injuries and musculoskeletal disorders such as lower back pain. HERS™ is designed to work with, not against, your body. But having a tool that fits is only the starting point – using it correctly is up to you! Here’s how you can work with HERS™ to get the job done while minimizing wear and tear on your body, the most important “tool” of all.

• Wear proper footwear – ideally shoes or boots with strong support in the arch and sole.
• Consider protecting your hands by wearing gloves such as the Bionic Classics, which improve your grip and help prevent blisters and calluses.
• Do some simple stretches before you get started. This increases blood flow to the muscles, effectively warming them up for working. For proper stretching techniques and examples of stretches and yoga poses, click here.

Get Technical

The HERS™ design incorporates findings from research supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2009-33610-19668 of the Small Business Innovation Research Grants Program. This grant enabled Green Heron Tools to conduct interviews and focus groups with women farmers throughout the U.S. and to engage a team of engineers and ergonomists from Penn State University to support the design and testing of several pre- HERS™ prototypes. Thanks to engineering doctoral candidate Jesun Hwang and engineers Andy Freivalds and Aaron Yoder for their pivotal roles in conducting the USDA-funded research, highlights of which include:

Effects of various handles, blade (lift) angles, and use of auxiliary D-grip

Field and laboratory testing measured the effects of handle or grip type, blade (lift) angle, and use of an auxiliary D grip mounted partway down the shovel shaft on two physiological measures – volume of oxygen consumption (VO2) and heart rate (HR). VO2 and HR both relate to the amount of energy expended during shoveling, with a lower energy expenditure being desirable. Field testing was carried out by volunteer women farmers, and laboratory testing, by graduate students. Participants were also asked which handles and angles they preferred.

Results:

• An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with full factorial design found statistically significant* relationships in laboratory testing between lift angle and VO2, handle type and VO2, use of auxiliary handle and VO2, and lift angle and HR. Specifically, a 36° angle (the largest tested), a wide D-handle and use of the auxiliary handle all reduced the physiological costs of digging and shoveling.
  • Statistical significance is a measure of the likelihood that results are “real” as opposed to having occurred by chance. A relationship is statistically significant only when there is at least a 95% likelihood that the observed results are real.
• User preferences of women farmers who participated in the field tests, as well as participants in a Pennsylvania Women’s Agricultural Network field day who tested the prototypes more informally, also favored the larger angle, auxiliary handle and wide D handle.

Penetrometer testing of force necessary to insert blade

A soil penetrometer was adapted to measure the force necessary to insert various blades into various types of soil and into lab foundry sand. The blade eventually chosen for HERS™ was found to be superior to all other blades tested -- round, flat and serrated flat -- in both mediums in which it was tested (soil in a Penn State high tunnel and laboratory foundry sand). This meant that inserting the HERS™ blade required less force than inserting other blades.

Comparison of final (redesigned) prototype with earlier prototypes

The final prototype featured the HERS™ blade, a wooden shaft approximating the length of the medium-size HERS™, and an extended D grip approximating the width of the later HERS™ D grip.

Results

The redesigned prototype was found to be superior to both the best earlier prototype (the 36° angle, wide D handle and auxiliary handle, with serrated flat blade) and a commercial garden shovel with square-point-flat-steel blade. More specifically, a two-sample t-test was used to determine differences in oxygen consumption, heart rate, perceived exertion, perceived discomfort and perceived fatigue.

• In comparing the combo prototype with the commercial shovel, statistically significant differences were found in all variables, all favoring the final prototype.
• In comparing the combo prototype with the best earlier prototype, statistically significant differences were found in all variables but normalized heart rate; again, all data favored the newest, redesigned prototype.

Figure 18: The effect of shovel type on physiological and subjective variables

*Significant differences between commercial or old best and redesigned (combo) shovel

Sustainability & HERS™

Practicing sustainability is one of Green Heron Tools’ core values. With the introduction of HERS™, the first in our own line of hergonomic™Hergonomic™ simply means ergonomic, for women.

Ergonomic = “designed for maximum comfort, efficiency, safety, and ease of use, especially in the workplace.” (Encarta Dictionary) So hergonomic™ tools and equipment are those designed to be easiest, safest, most comfortable and most effective for women. tools, we’ve been able to put this value into practice in a way that we haven’t been able to with products made by other companies:

• HERS™ is sourced and made in the USA, with all manufacturing and assembly taking place right here in our home state of Pennsylvania. This represents a huge savings in transportation costs & greenhouse gas emissions, and also means the people making HERS™ are paid livable wages and work in well-run, safe facilities. Both of our manufacturing partners – Ames True Temper & Port Erie PlasticsRead more about them in Partner Profiles – have been in operation for many years here in the U.S., and Ames has its own sustainability initiatives. Port Erie, meanwhile, made the mold for our D grip in-house instead of outsourcing that process to Asia as many companies do.
• The ash for the HERS™ handle is Appalachian Hardwood Verified Sustainable, meaning it comes from eastern U.S. forests where, on average, 2.29 trees are growing for every 1 tree that is harvested. This designation by Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers, Inc. is based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Inventory & Analysis for 344 counties in 12 states. Additionally, any wood scraps left over from the making of our handles are converted into wood pellets or wood chips -- nothing is wasted.
• The HERS™ blade is made from recycled steel.
• Our large, strong & durable D grip is hollow, which is great not only for the weight of the tool but also for minimizing the amount of plastic used. We also chose a plastic – copolymer polypropylene – that requires less material in the molding process than other choices such as high-density polyethylene. And, polypropylene is recyclable in most municipal recycling programs – though we expect it to be many years before anyone will be recycling HERS™.
• We’ve minimized packaging, both in how the shovels are shipped to us and in how you, the consumer, receive them. The tags on HERS™ are made from paper that is certified by the independent, non-profit Forest Stewardship Council as coming from trees harvested from responsibly managed forests. And any paper or other packing material you receive with your shovel will be either recycled or reused.

Perhaps most importantly, we’ve designed and built HERS™ to last. In contrast to products that fail or become obsolete in a relatively short time – ending up in landfills and requiring customers to spend more money to replace them -- HERS™ carries a 10-year limited warranty, meaning that if the shovel breaks from normal usage during that time, we will repair or replace it. With proper care, we hope and expect it to last much longer.

Care Instructions

• Store HERS™ indoors, out of rain & sun. Rain can rust the blade, and exposure to rain & sun can eventually cause wood to deteriorate.
• To prevent rust:
• Coat the blade with a light oil – something you can do for all your digging tools, as well as hoes and metal rakes. This can be done in several ways, including spraying with WD-40 or a silicone spray. We prefer these non-toxic alternatives, as recommended by Cornell Cooperative Extension:
• Rub the blade with an “oil sock.” (Stuff a sock with sand or wrapped cloth. Tie a knot and dip the sock in vegetable oil. Squeeze out the excess oil, and store the sock in a zip-lock plastic bag.)
• Prepare an “oil dip” by saturating a bucket or tub of sand with vegetable oil. Plunge the blade in the bucket several times after use. Any dirt on the blade will be rubbed off, and the tool will be oiled. An oil dip like this can last indefinitely. Note: Don’t overdo it with the oil! The Louisiana State University AgCenter suggests adding “a little” oil to a bucket filled 2/3 of the way with sand – up to a few quarts, depending on the size of the bucket. “The point is to have a little oil in the sand, not a little sand in the oil. If you can see liquid oil on top of the sand, you have way too much oil.”

• Use a stiff brush to clean off the worst of the dirt after using HERS™. If you must use water – e.g., to remove caked clay -- dry the blade thoroughly afterwards or plunge into an oil dip (see above).
• If any rust does form, scrape it off with steel wool or, if necessary, use a fine-grit sandpaper to lightly sand it off. Then follow the tips above to prevent further rusting.
• Storing HERS™ inside should be enough to protect the ash handle from deterioration. If your tool is exposed to the elements, however, consider this once-a-year treatment:
• Remove any dirt or debris and lightly sand any rough spots.
• Rub handle with pure tung oil* to create a waterproof finish & help prevent drying and cracking. To do this, soak a rag in the oil and slowly rub onto the handle, allowing the wood to absorb the oil. Let sit and repeat this procedure several times. Tung oil is slow-drying, so please be patient!
• Notes:
• Some products sold as tung (chinawood) oil contain toxic additives, including solvents that make the material flammable & combustible. We recommend using only pure (100%) tung oil, which is non-toxic (FDA-approved for surfaces that come in contact with food, in fact!).
• Store tung oil in a tightly sealed container in a cool, dry place. If there is a film on the surface or gummy deposits around the edge of the container, discard it and replace with new. The oil will no longer be able to cure properly in this condition, according to the website Woodwork Details.
• Shovel blades in general can benefit from occasional sharpening to ensure that they cut through the soil as easily as possible. Here are sharpening guidelines courtesy of the Cornell Cooperative Extension, Mother Earth News & The New York Times:
• Use a high-quality mill file, which is a hand file with square edges & a slight taper that is designed to cut only on the down or push stroke. A file about one inch wide & 10 inches long should work well. Unless you’re a sharpening pro, don’t use a power grinder – you could easily ruin the blade.
• Sharpen only on one side – the top, or inner edge of the blade, to create a slight bevel, or slope.
• Sharpening at a steep angle results in a more durable edge, which is what you want from a shovel blade. The New York Times recommends an angle of about 70 degrees to the upper surface of the shovel; Mother Earth News suggests an angle that puts a shine back only about ¼ inch into the blade.
• To sharpen, push the file away from you and move it diagonally, either from edge(s) to center or vice versa. Raise the file slightly as you bring it back to avoid dulling the teeth of the file; do not try to cut material on the backstroke. File with moderate pressure and at an even rate, letting the tool, not your strength, do the cutting. Try to keep the angle uniform.
• When finished, you should be able to feel a slight ridge of metal, known as a burr, on the underside of the blade. Removing this is unnecessary, as digging will do it for you.

Note: Even the strongest shovel is not made for extensive prying of solid objects. Please use common sense when using HERS™, and you will be rewarded with years of solid performance!

Warranty

HERS™ carries a 10-year limited warranty, meaning that if the shovel breaks from normal, non-commercial usage during that time, we will repair or replace it. Should you need to request service under this warranty, please follow these steps:

1. Call our customer service line at 610 844 5232 to request a return label
2. After you have received the label, ship the shovel, together with your original receipt or packing slip & a brief description of the circumstances under which the shovel broke, to:
• Green Heron Tools Returns
• 6239 Schochary Rd.
• New Tripoli, PA 18066

Reviews

Partner Profiles

The two companies profiled below are our HERS™ manufacturing partners – the folks we entrusted with turning the Green Heron Tools design into the world’s first hergonomic™ shovel / spade hybrid. Our contacts at both companies have gone the proverbial extra mile to help us navigate the world of manufacturing, and they’ve demonstrated in numerous ways that ethical, customer-centered business is alive and well in America. We’re proud to count them as our partners and look forward to continuing our relationship with them for years to come.

Ames True Temper

Company History

Ames True Temper – the company we chose to manufacture the HERS™ blade & shaft – has roots dating back to the founding of the U.S., when Captain John Ames, a blacksmith, began making America’s first metal shovels. Later, Ames shovels were used in the building of the transcontinental railroad, the installation of the Statue of Liberty, Admiral Byrd’s exploration of Antarctica, the creation of Mount Rushmore and the construction of the interstate highway system. President Abraham Lincoln personally asked Ames to supply shovels to the Union army during the Civil War.

A few years later, in the 1870s, Ames was producing more than 5,000 shovels each day - 60 percent of the world’s total number of metal shovels. Ames, which remained family-owned until the 1950s, purchased True Temper – another 200+-year-old U.S. company – in 1999. True Temper had begun in 1808 as The Old Stone Shop in Wallingford, VT, where blacksmith Alexander Miller manufactured hoes, axes, nails etc. In the 1830s, the shop was acquired by Lyman Batcheller and sons, who began forging a variety of agricultural forks, and in 1902 it joined 16 other forging companies to form The American Fork and Hoe Co., which manufactured a variety of agricultural products, particularly shovels and other digging tools.

When American Fork and Hoe was enlarged by a $20 million merger of small corporations by 1930, it became the largest hand-tool company in America, supplying about 90% of the hand tools used by U.S. farmers. The company’s name was changed in 1949 to True Temper, reflecting the newly developed process of tempering steel, and its headquarters moved to Pennsylvania in 1981.

Ames True Temper – now owned by the Griffon Corporation and based in Camp Hill, PA – is committed to sustainability and to reducing its carbon footprint. According to the Ames website, intensified sustainability and recycling initiatives in just a few years enabled the company to save 33,628 trees, 284,173 cubic yards of landfill space, 950,972 gallons of water, and 304,979 gallons of oil, as well as greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing more than 901 cars from the road for a year. The company is also listed on PPL Electric Utilities’ Honor Roll for its energy efficiency efforts.

Ames’ shovel manufacturing facility is located in Lewistown, PA, less than an hour south of Penn State and only two hours from Green Heron’s headquarters in eastern Pennsylvania. This made it possible for us to pick up the first shipment of HERS™ ourselves, in a rental truck. But that (& the unloading of the shovels!) is another story . . .

Port Erie Plastics

To manufacture our unique D grip, we turned to Port Erie Plastics. True to its name, Port Erie began in a small building in Erie, PA, in 1953, when Henry J. Witkowski began operating a single injection molding machine.

In 1966 Port Erie purchased a 22-acre site in Harborcreek, east of Erie, and built a small manufacturing plant next to a golf course. Several expansions and more than 40 years later, Port Erie is still a family-owned company, but it now has a 575,000-square-foot manufacturing and warehousing complex on 69 acres, featuring more than 75 injection molding machines and employing some 400 full-time employees.

This makes Port Erie one of the leaders in a region that is an epicenter of the plastics industry. The company was a major supporter of the Plastics Technology Center at Penn State University’s Erie campus – at one time one of only two campuses in the U.S. to offer degreed programs in Plastics Engineering Technology. (A project engineer from the Center was instrumental in helping Green Heron Tools fine-tune our large D grip and make our design mold-ready.) The Witkowski building on campus there is named for the family owning Port Erie.

One of the distinguishing features of Port Erie is that it has its own in-house tool room, where molds for individual plastic parts are made. Many companies outsource mold-making to China; we were very happy that Port Erie was able not only to manufacture our grips but also to make the mold for them right here in Pennsylvania.