Health Essentials - How to Bend and Lift
Hey there, Dr. Fedich. I have a quick video for you on how to bend and lift properly. A lot of people hurt their back by bending and lifting improperly, so I’ll show you a couple of quick tips.
First, we always want to bend with our knees. If we're picking something up in front of us—let's say we have this to pick up—many people would just bend down like this, pick it up, and that's how we hurt our back. The back is very weak in that position. So, if we have something in front of us, we want to bend with our legs. Right? We can just bend and squat a little bit. If something is lower, like this, it's a little off-screen. We'll take one foot in front of the other, bend down, pick it up, and keep it close to our stomach as we stand up.
I’ll get a little closer. We're just going to bend, putting one foot in front of the other, and pick it up. You want to keep the weight nice and close to your belly—that's really important. Your back is very strong when you keep the weight close to your center. For example, if you’re holding a 10-pound weight close to your back, it’s just 10 pounds. But as you lift it out, the weight multiplies. That 10-pound weight can feel like 150 pounds. That's how we hurt our back. So, keep it as close to your belly as possible.
Now, if we need to bend down to pick something up off the floor—let's say you dropped this towel—I'll lower the camera a bit for you. You don’t want to bend like this because that will certainly hurt your back. Instead, use one hand to support your leg, slide down, and then slide back up, using the support to help.
These are simple steps to help you out. Remember: keep the weight close to your stomach, bend and lift with your legs, keep one leg in front and one leg back, and use your elbow to slide down your leg when necessary. These tips can help you avoid injury when lifting and carrying things.
