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Don’t Miss this VLOG on Intelligent Lifting!

Ever sprained your back after lifting something heavy or doing a lot of repetitive lifting? If you have, you’ll know that it is very painful and very debilitating. Watch this video from our postural education program Perfect Posture Online which teaches you how to lift correctly.

The video references three principles which are taught in Perfect Posture Online:

1. Bringing Everything in Towards You
2. Sitting Back into Yourself By Keeping Your Knees Slightly Bent in Order to keep Your Weight Balanced in Your Heels
3. Curling Your Pelvis to Balance the Weight Correctly with Abdominal Muscle Support

Proper  lifting  techniques  are  critical  for  spinal  health.  Repetitively  lifting  heavy  objects  incorrectly causes  unnecessary  stress  to  the  spine  that  can eventually  lead  to  spinal  degeneration, herniated spinal  discs, rigid  muscles and chronic back pain.

Improper  lifting  is  a  very  common  cause  of  injury.  Remember,  it  is  not  always  from  lifting  heavy  objects,  injury  can  also  occur from repetitive lifting of smaller objects when done so with improper lifting strategies.

• Before  lifting  the  object,  the  feet  should  be  shoulder  width  apart,  and you should  be  positioned  close  to  the  object  where you  don’t  need  to  reach  excessively  far  forward.
• Contract  the  core  musculature  by  drawing  the belly button back towards  the  spine.
• Keep  the  spine  straight  while  bending.
• Bend  with  the  legs,  bending  the  knees  to  lift  the  object.

Never  bend  forward  at  the  waist  with  the  legs  straight,  as this  causes  great  strain  to  the  lower  back.

*We write regular articles on topics related to posture and balance. You can read them by clicking the menu item ‘Posture’ to the right.

If you are interested in taking our online course on posture, please click the button below to take the first lesson for free.