Now that we’re in the full swing of fall it’s time we talked about how to rake those leaves properly. Granted leaves don’t weigh much but if you employ poor raking techniques you could easily throw your back out.
This is a time when a lot of people are trying to get their yards prepped for the winter and what winds up happening is they strain their bodies and they hurt themselves. In order to prevent this, one of the first things you should do is hydrate well.
Hydrate!
If you’re going to be out in the yard working you want to make sure that you are properly hydrated not only during the work but before you leave the house to do the lawn care. The next thing you want to make sure you do is to get your body warm.
Get the blood moving!
You want to make sure that you warm up. Take a walk up and down your driveway to make sure that you get the blood flowing. Do some arm and leg swings to get the blood circulating through your body.
How you position your body raking matters!
You never want to bend at the waist if possible. If your rake does not support that, look into getting a more ergonomic rake or get a rake that’s taller so you don’t have to bend over to rake. Also, make sure that you’re alternating sides when you rate. If you start on the right, do 10 strokes and then switch to your left and do 10 strokes.
Try to rake out in front of you an toward you with your hips pointing forward. Try not to twist to move the leaves behind you. Once you have completed all of your raking there are a couple things left to do.
Stretch!
You want to make sure you drink lots of water and stretch for at least 15 minutes when you’re done. Pop on the tv and stretch while you’re watching.
Get some protein.
Drink a shake or eat some eggs, find a way to get some protein in your body to help speed the repair of muscles that you just used. Eating protein after will help reduce soreness and inflammation.
Repair and replenish
Remember to drink plenty of water to help flush the toxins from your system. You can also take an Epsom salt bath to help soothe aching, tired muscles.
See your CBP Chiropractor
Another thing you can do to help with muscle soreness is to get a CBP Chiropractic adjustment. Doing all that manual labor can throw your body out of alignment and cause subluxations. Seeing your chiropractor will remove those subluxations and reduce the amount of pressure on your spine. So make an appointment with your Chiropractor after you do any strenuous activity.
(repost from September 2018)
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