Snow Shoveling: Smart Shoveling vs Dumb Shoveling

With low back rounded, it can cause back pain

An appropriate post with snow coming down over over the west coast!  (I know the anyone East of the Rockies has already been shoveling for a while.)  Shoveling is one of many ways that people end up hurting their backs over the holidays.  The reason for this has to do with poor mechanics and/or poor tools (shovels).  Things that are done poorly and repetitively cause a toll on our backs.  Most people when they begin to shovel snow do so without a warm up (strike number 1).  When they do start shoveling snow, they do so while bending at the back and not at the hips (strike number 2).  With the back bent, it puts tremendous stress on ligaments and discs.  Doing a number of repetitions of this will eventually "wear" on those structures (strike number 3).  If it does not cause back pain during shoveling, it may cause back pain by doing a simple task such as putting on your socks, or picking up a pen or childs toy off the ground. 

Here is a great 1 minute clip by one of the worlds leading back pain experts that explains how snow shoveling can be done while sparing your back:

Stu McGill Smart Shovel

Shovel Smart!

Why you may want to INCREASE stiffness

Isn't it a bit ironic that most of us want to improve our flexibility (by stretching), yet we always say that we want to "tighten up" our core.  From an athletic perspective, everyone from gymnasts (very flexible) to weightlifters (less flexible) are told to "stay tight" during a given movement.  So exists the conundrum of whether to increase or decrease STIFFNESS.





What does STIFFNESS mean?

Stiffness is a means to increase stability.  Thing about something rigid (such as a piece of lumber) versus something flexible (such as a rope).  If your goal was to transmit force (ie. if you choose to put a hole in the wall, which object would you choose?)  In the body, stiffness ensures minimal energy loss as forces are transmitted from joint to joint.  Optimal performance requires stability, and stability is a product of stiffness.

How do we INCREASE stiffness?

In the body, we can increase stiffness by muscle contraction.  As a muscle contracts, it produces force as well as creates compression (bringing the joints closer together).  If a joint is more congruent, it will tend to increase stability and its force transmitting capability.  Think about the spine as a force transferring structure.  The spine is clearly very flexible, and would be more like the rope in the previous example.  Its our core muscles that attach to the spine that gently compress and place tension along the spine to increase STIFFNESS so we can transmit force from lower to upper body.  It is this type of stiffness that is important from the golf/baseball swing, throwing a ball, flips in gymnastics and lifting weights.

So why not just become STIFF?

The important thing to know is when to increase stiffness and decrease stiffness in a given joint to produce the desired movement.  If a joint is too stiff, it will limit the range of motion of that joint and thus, is difficult to produce movement.  So when training for a given movement, it is important to learn the sequence of stiffening and relaxing to transmit force efficiently.  It is like using a whip.  If you mistime the sequence of the movement, you will not be able to achieve a "cracking" of the whip.  In comparison to athletic movement and performance, you can tell who has mastered the sequence of stiffness and relaxation by how fluid their movement is.  Simply look at professional athletes versus your beginner.  Most beginners look "stiff" all the time, while professionals look very fluid!

Stretching the hamstrings: Do you really know what you are doing?

I'm not a big advocate of stretching (in particular, passive stretching).  One of the reasons I'm not a fan is because most often, people don't have clue what they are stretching.  In fact, most people aren't even stretching what they are intending to stretch.

Lets take one of the most common examples, the hamstring stretch:

Question #1: What are we trying to stretch?

Of course we are trying to stretch our hamstring muscle.  We know that the muscle belly is the most extensible part of a complex that includes muscles, tendons and joints.  In fact, a muscle belly can stretch up to 10% of its resting length without damaging the muscle tissue.  With this being the case, if our hamstring muscle belly was approximately 40cm long, we would only get 4cm stretch out of the actual muscle we are trying to stretch!  This is assuming that we are actually able to ONLY stretch the muscle belly.

Question #2: What are we actually stretching?

As mentioned in the answer to question 1, we are stretching a complex of structures including tendons and joints (just to name a few).  Not only that, but while we are trying to stretch our hamstrings, we are also stretching a number of structures in our low back as we bend forward.  We may be stretching some muscles of the low back, we would also be stretching important ligaments and joint capsules that help with low back stability.  Though this may help with overall flexibility, it is detrimental to stability of the low back forcing back and core muscles to work harder to maintain stability.  As a side note, we know that people with greater low back flexibility are more prone to pain as they age.

Question #3:  What is the limiting factor?

As mentioned, we are stretching a number of structures that have varied extensible properties.  Muscles are clearly the most extensible of the bunch with joint capsules, ligaments, and tendons being less extensible.  One structure that has gone unmentioned (and frankly is often forgotten) is nerves.  Nerve tissue is very tough and not very extensible.  So when we stretch our hamstrings, as we pull our toes towards us, we end up stretching nerves (the sciatic nerve and associated branches).  In most cases, this is in fact the limiting factor during traditional stretching of hamstrings.  An analogy would be like taking an elastic (hamstring) and a rope (nerve) and stretching them as far as they can go.  Your stretch would be limited by the rope and not the elastic.  

Question #4:  Why are we stretching the hamstrings?

In most instances, I understand people are trying to stretch hamstrings to improve flexibility.  Though you may feel that you have improved your flexibility during (passive) stretching, as soon as you stand or alter your position, you nerves tell your muscles to return to their regular length.  To gain any long term flexibility, you would have to stretch numerous times a day.  Of course, my question to you would be why do you want to improve your hamstring flexibility?  Have a look at this for a better understanding of Stability, Mobility and Flexibility

I will follow up with how you can safely stretch your hamstrings should you need to improve your flexibility.