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. 

Why do people say "No pain, No gain?"

I have heard this phrase a few times over the last few weeks and its made me a bit curious.  Where did the saying "no pain, no gain" come from?

From what I remember, this saying came from aerobics workouts in the early 1980's where the instructor would encourage participants that they need to "feel the burn" and "pain is only temporary."  The unfortunate thing is that these sayings were not the right way to go about encouraging people. Like that game of telephone we use to play as kids, where one person would start with a message, and by the time it got to the end of the line, the message was not what was originally intended, these phrases of encouragement have been long since misconstrued.

The saying "no pain, no gain" today means that people should continue on with activities that cause physical pain.  We see this in runners who feel that they should continue running even though their knee pain from poor running mechanics will continue to make the pain worse.   We see this in people with back pain who only feel a "twinge" so they continue on with their activities with the "no pain, no gain" mentality. 

So if the term "no pain, no gain" was taken literally, why don't you see people continually slamming their hand in a door, or repeatedly dropping heavy objects on their foot?  It most certainly be painful.  It is pretty clear that there is little to gain from the previous two examples.

What is pain suppose to signify?  Pain is like a warning light on your car.  It tells you that something is not right.  Most often with pain, if you cease your activity, the pain will subside (as in the runner with knee pain, or slamming your hand in a door).  However, if you later decide to resume the activity, the pain will likely return.  This is where it is helpful to see someone who can determine the cause, and treat the source of the pain. 




To go back to the origin of the motto "no pain, no gain" I believe what the aerobics instructors were trying to encourage people to do was to work through some mild discomfort to your cardiovascular and respiratory systems.  I hope they weren't encouraging people to work through back and knee pain, but it seems that this is what has become of the famous motto.

Reasons why machines should be banned from gyms

Its a wonder that some people can actually get a workout in if you go to the gym.  If you go into most gyms, you will see most of the gym floor is cluttered with large weight machines.  There seems to be a stigma that a gym has to be full of equipment and bulky machines, or it won't be considered a gym.  Most of the gyms I've been in look similar to this:

Here are some of my reasons why machines should be outlawed at gyms:

1.  We use machines everyday to make things easier (and less physical) for us.  If we are going to a gym, aren't we trying to do more physical work?  Are we not trying to get a sweat on?  If we were looking at making things easier, why are you working out in the first place?

2.  Machines are expensive.  Most cost thousands of dollars.  The hilarity of it is that they are only good for one thing.  For instance, a leg extension machine can only be used for leg extension (besides being a terrible exercise for your knees, but that is an article in itself).  There really is no other use for it.  The other thing is that it usually takes us through a fixed plane of motion (there is minimal stability required).  Very little things we do in life require us to minimize stability and move through one plane.

3.  Machines are huge.  They take up tons of space.  This reduces space to move and perform other (and in my humble opinion, better) exercises.

4. Most machines are bad for you.  I've outlined some of the machines that can cause more harm than good.  For instance, the leg press machine and weighted abdominal machine can lead to disc herniation, the oblique twist machine can stretch out ligaments in your low back, and the knee extension machine can cause patella and ligament problems.  

So if there is a gym with no machines, what can you do to workout?  You can do what they use to do in the old days and actually lift a weight and doing exercises that mimic what you do in sport or life.  Doing lifts that include lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling and dragging requires no machines and minimal equipment.  Ideally, a gym would have a squat rack (handy for many exercises besides a squat), an olympic bar, some cables (for pulling exercises), some dumbbells, and maybe a few other pieces of fancy equipment such as kettlebells, gym balls and stability boards.  With this combination of equipment, you can do a huge variety of exercises.


What about the older people or the people who are new to the gym.  Shouldn't they be using machines to introduce them and to teach them how to work out?  I would say no way!  Why would you teach them bad habits and use machines that only do one thing, when you can start fresh and teach them how to do functional exercises.  

Why you shouldn't be lifting with your legs (or your back)

I tend to hear a lot of; "Don't lift with you back, lift with your legs and use your knees."  I know these people are trying to spare their back by lifting with their legs but they are not using the right cues.  I found this picture about so-called proper lifting technique:

First, the picture of the "proper lifting technique" shows lumbar flexion (bending low back) which is not good for your back (I'll give it to you if you are saying that there is less than in the other example).  Secondly, the person's feet aren't flat so he isn't stable and there is significant stress on the knees with lifting like that. 

So if you should not lift with the legs, what should you lift with?  You should be lifting with your hips.  Your glutes are designed to do hip extension which is what you are trying to do when you are lifting something from the ground.  Olympic lifters learn how to lift extremely heavy weights by learning to stabilize their "core" and using their glutes to do most of the lifting. 

I'm an advocate of learning how to squat and deadlift using hips to accomplish standing.  So spare your knees and legs.  Let the hips do all the work. 

Are you using a disc herniation machine at the gym?

With all the machines that are in fitness facilities, there are a number that are good at helping to increase the chance you will injure one of your discs.

We know that there are two things that are not good for the health of your back (even if you are doing these exercises to improve your core.) The first is prolonged flexion.  This includes sitting for long periods and being bent in flexed postures for long periods of time.  A good analogy would be like if you took a metal rod and bent it for a long time.  You would find that the longer it bends, the more quickly it will deform and will likely break at some point.  This can also happen to your back (over a very long period of time). 

The second thing that is not good for the health of your back is repetitive flexion.  This is what is commonly seen at the gym.  In order, from bad to worst, here are some repetitive flexion exercises at the gym that will increase the chance of disc injury:

1.  Sit ups
In my opinion, there is no safe way to do sit ups (nor is there a need to.)  Sits ups are the perfect example of repetitive flexion.  Its like taking a metal rod and repetitively bending it back and forth.  Sooner or later, you will end up with a weak spot and it will break.

2. The Weighted Sit up Machine
This one is a beauty!  Not only are you doing repetitive flexion, but you are also compressing the spine while you do it.

3. The Leg Press Machine
To be honest, I've seen someone injure their disc on four separate occasions by doing extremely heavy weight.  Why did they injure their disc?  As they lower the weight, their knees come towards their chest.  As that happens, you flex your lumbar spine.  Now you have to use a tremendous amount of force to move the weight back to its starting position.  Its usually at this point that the person may feel a "pop" and a tremendous amount of pain.  

Interestingly enough, most gyms have a few variations of a sit up machine and leg presses.  Might you reconsider using them?