This literature review gives support for a positive health effect of regular physical exercise matching the physical demands at work and the anatomical origin of disorder:

-specific trunk muscle exercises ca 1–2 times/week can have a positive effect on low back disorders among women/men with heavy vigorous or varied job tasks working in different health care or industrial settings

-specific shoulder-arm and neck exercises ca 1–2 times/week can have a positive effect on neck-shoulder and neck disorders, respectively, among women with light repetitive or monotonous job tasks working in different office settings.

Overall, associations between physical exercise and improvement in related physical performance and musculoskeletal health – disorders were found in those studies which met the criteria of randomized allocation, specified exercises, frequency and duration of the exercise session and documented effect from exercise on the corresponding physical capacity. Minor or major methodological deficiencies are, however, present in many of the intervention studies that impair the assessment as they can lead to an over- as well as an underestimation of the effect of training. Future studies should therefore focus on high methodological quality especially regarding 1) research design, inclusion criteria, allocation to intervention and control group; 2) exercise program, registration of compliance to training and changes of occupational load; 3) high accuracy of the effect measures