Shoveling Injuries To The Lower Back: How To Prevent Them – 3Sixty Athletics - Long Island, NY 3Sixty Athletics

Shoveling Injuries To The Lower Back: How To Prevent Them

The north east just got walloped with snow, so like a good little boy, I went out and shoveled for grandma and grandpa. Before I went outside, grandma, in true grandma fashion said, “be careful!” I laughed. Me? Careful? Never. But while I was out shoveling I started to think about how potentially dangerous it is for most people to gear up and go outside and chaotically hurl snow around. When I got inside, I was intrigued. How dangerous is it? Do shoveling injuries frequently happen?

A recent study done by the Center For Injury Research showed that over 12,000 emergency room visits occur each year due to snow shoveling related injuries. Of those 12,000 injuries, the lower back was by far the most frequently effected region of the body.

So, that leads us to our next question. How do we hurt our lower backs?

The work of back specialist Dr. Stuart McGill shows us that the most likely cause of injury occurs when the lower back moves through flexion combined with rotation, while under load.

Recipe For Back Injury ^

To simplify and be more clear, injuries to the lower back primarily occur when we bend over and twist to lift things.

From these two points, we can extrapolate a simple yet important statement.

Every year tons of people hurt their backs while shoveling, likely due to bending and rotating.

So, how can we limit the chances of us hurting our backs during our next snow shoveling adventure?

1. Rather than bend at the lower back, bend from the hips and use your butt.
2. Rather than twist at the lower back, twist from the upper back and use your shoulders.
3. Use your core to stabilize and limit the amount of movement that will happen at the lower back.

We need a series of exercises that will loosen the hips and upper back while activating the core. If we can do this, we can safely say that we are at significantly less risk of being one of those 12,000 people visiting the hospital this year due to shoveling related injuries.

There are a ton of exercises that can loosen the hips, activate the core, and loosen the upper back. However, we want this to be quick, easy, require zero equipment, and be things everyone can do.

Further, we want exercises that will allow us to sit back into our hips as we bend over, both from a square stance and a split stance. As you’ll see(and feel), the series below will do just that.

So, here we go. Before you head outside and attack the snow, get down and hit this quick series.