Bend your knees, save your back
Occupational safety training rules about picking up heavy objects focus on one basic principle: Lift with your knees, not your back.
By bending your knees when you lift a heavy object, and keeping your back straight and upright, the strain of lifting is experienced by that part of your body best designed to handle it – your legs and your hips. The stress is off the backbone, which is weakest when bent.
Why then do so many people end up with sore or injured backs? I see it as being caused by two basic human weaknesses: 1) an unwillingness to bend or give in and 2) common mule-headedness. And while many people recognize these weaknesses, they usually see them in others, not in themselves.
Read Also
Claims filed in Alberta hailstorm aftermath
The numbers are still coming in for the cost of the damage caused by a huge hail storm that hit various areas of Alberta Aug. 20.
These two weaknesses can cause more trouble in life than just sore backs. They cause personal anguish and unhappy marriages. They can even lead to verbal and emotional abuse and physical harm to others.
Choosing to bend your knees instead of your back may be the safest way to lift, but it doesn’t come naturally. Because we refused to lift the right way, we pay the price of discomfort or pain. And why? Because we didn’t recognize and challenge our impatience or stubbornness. The same thing happens when we refuse to live the right way.
Choosing to stop and think before you say or do something also doesn’t come naturally to us, particularly if our backs are up. If we feel angry at someone and we let our natural tendencies take their course, we’ll likely do or say something that will only make things worse. And we will eventually pay the same price in our relationship with them, as we do when we wrench our backs, because we refuse to do things differently.
The minute you realize you are charging ahead without having thought things through, say “whoa” to yourself, loud and clear. Back away physically from the situation for awhile. Ask yourself, “What am I doing this for? What am I trying to prove to myself? What am I trying to prove to others?”
Those are tough questions. But if you answer those questions honestly, you will realize you don’t need to keep doing what you are doing. You have choices. You can make decisions and do things that don’t get you into difficulties with yourself or with others.
People often find it hard to bend their knees, and their attitudes. But if you remain rigid and refuse to adapt to what is happening around you in a flexible and healthy way you are going to hurt yourself and others.
