Safe Lifting over the Christmas Period

Safe Lifting of all those heavy items over the Christmas period includes Christmas Dinner: I love a juicy turkey with all the trimmings but if you’ve got your family coming around for Christmas lunch that turkey can end up being pretty big and heavy.

The last thing anyone wants on Christmas day when their Chiropractor is at home enjoying their own Christmas dinner is to hurt their back lifting the turkey into or out of the oven.

So here are some good lifting and bending tips to make sure the lifting of that giant turkey doesn’t spoil your dinner!!

The first tip for bending is to bend in a way that we call the ‘hip hinge’ – this pattern of movement ensures that you don’t add extra stresses to your lower back, this is always a good way to bend especially when you are lifting a heavy weight.

The 1st picture shows how to practice doing the hip hinge correctly – if the pole stays against your head, mid back and bottom as you bend then you have the movement pattern right. The 2nd picture shows a lower bend without the pole.

When you bend like this there is less stress through your lower back and then when you come back to standing you push up using your thigh and glute (bum) muscles so again not needing to add any extra stress to your lower back.

This is a safe lifting technique and to help your body get used to a different movement pattern it is a good idea to practice the movement at other times so that when it is important you are more used to doing it. A squat exercise is a good way to practice this movement pattern and strengthen your thighs and buttock muscles.

The next tip for when you lift a heavy weight is you need to fix your shoulder blades onto your rib cage to ensure you use the big muscles in your back for strength rather than the small muscles at the top of the shoulders. Squeeze your shoulders back a little and imagine you are sticking your shoulder blade to your back before you lift.

For more movement and strengthening exercises you can visit our Facebook page where there are photos and information about stretches and exercises.

Safe Lifting over the Christmas period Everyone.