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You only get one back in life. Sure, surgery can “fix” a back but it will never be what it once was.

Even if you already have back pain or damage, it is still worth changing your ways and preserving what you have left.

Changing Your Ways

Yes, you see most people lift incorrectly and this is why they develop back bain. Human beings were never meant to be sedentary, work in offices or lift heavy objects. We were supposed to be highly mobile for most of the day which gives great flexibility to the back.

Stooping

Ever notice how golfers stoop down to collect the ball from the hole? They never bend at the knees.

Each time they do that, they wear away a minute portion of the back. When you stoop, you are actually loading your back with half of your body weight!

If you stoop, you should always bend at the knees. Always!

Correct Lifting Procedure

The correct way to lift is to do it like an olympic powerlifter.

- look ahead while lifting

- keep the weight as close to the centre of your body as possible

- bend at the knees to approach the weight

- lift with the legs first then the arms, never with your back

Follow these simple steps and you will have a back that will last you a lifetime!

Nearly everyone that I know does not do manual handling correctly, which includes lifting as well as pulling and pushing.

How To Lift Correctly

There are actually a few techniques to lift correctly but all follow the same principles.

First of all, you should bend at the knees and not at the waist. Even stooping over at the waist like golfers do when they retrieve their ball from the hole is bad for the lower back. Their lower back is effectively lifting the entire upper body, even though the ball might weigh practically nothing.

Secondly, you should keep the weight as close as possible the the centre line of your body. This means it should be kept central and it should also be kept close to you.

Third, as you lift you should do so in a controlled manner and not a jerky one, otherwise you risk dropping the load and injuring yourself. A good tip is to look straight ahead as you lift, much as an Olympic weight lifter will do. This will help to keep your body vertical and prevent you from leaning forward or backward.

The Benefits Of Lifting Correctly

If you lift correctly then you should hopefully not get any back trouble in future years to come.

The problem with humans is that ever since we learned to walk on two feet we have put the health of our backs at risk. Worse still, the modern sedentary lifestyle and evolution of the desk job have made this problem worse. Regular exercise to mobilise the back is also recommended if your day to day job does not involve any outdoor or manual work.

The discs in your back sit within the spine. The spine is made up of a number of blocks called vertebrae. In between each vertebrae there is a rubbery disc.

The disc is like a shock absorber. Anytime there is a sudden load on the back then the discs are great for absorbing it.

But the problem comes when the disc suffers from wear and tear. Bad posture and incorrect lifting will cause damage to the spine including the discs over time.

Often what happens is that a particularly bad lift will rupture a disc. When this happens, the gooey liquid inside the disc will leak out and get close to the nerves. This will give an incredible shooting pain that many people say is the worst pain that they have ever felt.

The best thing to do if you think you have a slipped disc is to contact your doctor who will refer you to a specialist back doctor.

Do not go to your chiropractor. Chiropractors only manipulate the back to give you some instant relief. A slipped disc is a medical condition that a chiropractor is simply not qualified to deal with.

Back pain is an avoidable “disease”.

Back pain seems to affect most Americans in later life. Chiropractors make a killing out of your pain because everyone seems to get it. This is partly a result of the sedentary lifestyle of working in an office.

Think about it – you sit in a chair all day which is bad for the spine and human skeleton. Men and animals alike were meant to be constantly on the move, not constrained to sit at a desk for most of the day.

Make sure that you have a good chair at work, in fact demand it of your employer. Your bad posture will give you cumulative damage. You might feel alright now but in 20 years time you could regret it.

The other thing is to make sure that you life correctly. Most people lift items in a bad way and even objects that weight just a few pounds can take a cumulative toll on your back.

The best way is to lift as close to the body as possible and keep the back straight. A good way to do this is to look ahead while you are lifting. Think about how those Olympic power lifters do it and you get a good idea of the most efficient and least dangerous way to lift any object.