Spring is here! Finally. We now have to get out in our yards and start doing yard work again. (With this quarantine, nobody has an excuse not to beautify their yard!) It’s time to clean up all the fallen leaves off our flower beds, to replant flowers, put down mulch and mow the yard for the first time in months.

There is extra bending, lifting and carrying bags of mulch and soil, carrying the weedeater around and pulling weeds. So now is the time to protect your back!

Proper Yard Work

When your bending and kneeling, make sure that you are bending at your knees and not at your hips! This is key to saving your back. Watch how little kids and babies bend to pick something up. They always bend at their knees. As we age, our knees start to bother us (and we get lazy) so we start bending at our hips instead.

If you are worried about being down on the ground, invest in a good garden stool. This will also help you protect your back, so that you are not bending at the waist. If you are needing to move rocks, mulch or anything else, get a wagon to tote objects around. This will save your back so that you don’t carry too much. Every pound you lift is 15 pounds of pressure on your low back! This adds up and you can see why after hours of working in the yard your low back can start hurting!

When using outdoor equipment, regardless of what it is, make sure it has a strap. This will help your center of gravity. Be sure to switch the side on which you are operating the equipment as often as possible, to balance the muscles being used. Overuse of one side of your body will cause issues in alignment of the spine.

Tips

Yard work equipment can be heavy and awkward to handle. Improper use of equipment like lawn mowers can result in back pain, neck pain, and muscular strain. Following these tips for safely using outdoor equipment to prevent yard work injury:

1. Take frequent breaks. The time you take to rest during your work could be the time you save avoiding a trip to the doctor from yard work injury.
2. When using equipment that requires you to push, like a lawn mower, use your legs to drive it ahead of you. Don’t push with your back.
3. Alternate your sides frequently. Always make sure to switch the side you are working to maintain balance and avoid overworking one side.
4. If you do pull a muscle or overdo it, make sure to ice right away, and do not apply heat! (Heat will cause more inflammation.)
5. If you do pinch or tweak something, make sure to get a chiropractic adjustment right away! Don’t let an injury get worse, it may go away, but it typically comes back worse than the original injury.

Chiropractic

Pain is the LAST sign that something is wrong. Being proactive and getting checked before you have pain can save you time, money, and health problems. Doesn’t it make sense to keep aligned and not have to “fix” issues that can arise versus having severe issues that takes a significant amount of time to fix? (Like car maintenance, being proactive is better than finding yourself stranded on the side of the road.)

If you have any questions about how chiropractic can help, give me or a chiropractor near you a call! Chiropractic is whole body wellness and focuses on a LOT more than just low back or neck pain!

~Dr. Lacey~
Carder Chiropractic Clinic, INC.
El Reno, OK 73036