You just spent your entire Saturday helping your friend move into her new apartment. The next day your back is aching, and you feel soreness all throughout. Back pain can affect your daily activities, even in finding comfort in sitting for long periods of time. Such fall out, can bring you to learning proper body mechanics to ease pain and protect the back.

Chronic back problems do not only arise from doing daily lifting with bad mechanics but also from doing normal movements like bending down to pick up a pencil you dropped [2]. For instance, this sudden action of bending forward at a bad angle has caused people to suffer from an inflamed or irritated nerve root.

There are several common situations where people most often experience injury when lifting. The top three circumstances where back injuries were caused by lifting were: handling children, lifting luggage or travel equipment, and lifting first thing in the morning [2]. Handling and lifting children is always risky and requires immense attention, but you have to be sure to monitor your posture and position when lifting to avoid unnecessarily hurting yourself. When it comes to the potential injuries of lifting travel equipment, the most risk comes from after the journey. Spending a long amount of time seated in a car or on a plane makes your spine sore already as we are not meant to sit so long. Immediately engaging in lifting after these long journeys, especially lifting heavy luggage equipment, is a recipe for disaster. Be extra careful during these times and receive assistance when available. Lastly, the early morning poses huge risk for our back for a similar reason to the above. For approximately 8 hours, we are entirely motionless in a bed, making our spine discs highly susceptible to injury [2]. Avoid all bending and lifting in the early mornings and give your body time to warm up to the day.

Knowing how to properly move your body and back can help prevent back injury. Here are a few ways to protect your back when lifting items from the floor.

Key Steps to Lifting Properly:

Step 1 - Stand with your legs aligned to your shoulders.

Step 2 - Squat to bend down without letting your knees surpass your toes. Maintain a gentle arch to the back [2].

Step 3 - Once the item is in hand slowly lift with your legs, not your back.

Step 4 – Keep the item close to your body, not extended far away [2].

Step 5 - If you need to place the item behind you, never lift and twist at the same time. Instead, turn your whole body with your feet.

Although these tips are beneficial for those moments of heavy lifting, strengthening your back over time is without a doubt the best way to perform lifts easier in the long run, avoiding any chance of injury to your back. Having the proper form for lifting will only get you so far, especially if there comes a time when you need to perform a much heavier lift or lift heavy far more often. In general, strengthening the stability of your back helps with any daily activity, and can improve your exercise performance.

Here Are 5 Ways to Strengthen and Protect Your Back Overtime For Lifting Safely:

1. Strengthen your core

The core is the center of your body. Increasing your core strength directly affects the strength of your back, as it only improves daily mobility to have the center of your body strong and stable. You can strengthen your core in a multitude of ways. Try doing core workouts like ball exercises to directly increase your core strength [1]. You can also stretch out the core and improve blood flow in the region through regular lower body cardio like walking or hiking [1].

2. Change your furniture

The largest percentage of back pain reported by people is often due to poor posture while seated. Invest in ergonomic equipment when you can, as it will help support the lumbar spine and discs. Sometimes, it is even recommended that you avoid the desk and chair set up altogether and invest in a stand up desk [1]. If you require the desk and chair set up, as some individuals cannot be standing for extended periods of time, then make sure you use your phone to time yourself and get up at least every hour to stretch and move your feet.

3. Avoid and lessen potential daily back stressors

There are many daily activities we do that, unconsciously, place immense stress on our bodies. These are as simple as grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, gardening, cleaning, and more. We have to be conscious of our movements, posture, and body while engaging in these activities. It is easy to not pay attention to our bodies while we are heavily focused on something that is so simple and normal to our everyday lives, but this conscious awareness will help you prevent back pain over time. For example, make sure you vacuum with both arms and in small movements, rather than using only one arm in large movements, as this often puts a lot of force on the spine [1].

4. Take breaks between bending and/or lifting

Having your back in a bent position for a long time actually changes the stability of your back. Your spine alters its shape to support the posture change, such as when you are bent down for a while tending to a garden. Your back becomes a lot more stiff [1]. When coming out of this position, your back is vulnerable to injury. Do not engage in immense bending or lifting after bending for a long time. Stay upright with a straight back for at least 5 minutes, allowing your spine to take its appropriate shape and stability back before engaging in bending again.

5. Take caution when waking up

As mentioned previously, when we wake up, our spine is severely vulnerable to injury due to the pressure on the discs from our bodies laying still and parallel to the ground. Keep your back straight for at least an hour in the early mornings before engaging in any lower back stressors like lifting [1].

By Ashley Gresko

Blog Editing Consultant for Health Industry Designs

References

[1] https://www.spine-health.com/blog/7-tips-protect-your-lower-back

[2] https://boostphysio.com/lifting-technique/