Keeping Your Back Safe While Gardening
If you love to garden, you’ve likely suffered a backache or two from maintaining your garden beds. It can be a multiple-season routine, depending on what you are planting or trying to grow, which means your back is regularly getting put under stress from bending over and over again. For others, they are doing most of the work during just one season of the year, which means their back may not be used to this type of labor.
While a few backaches may not seem like a big deal, you are actually putting your back in danger when you work in the garden improperly. Take a look at these few steps you can take to protect your back while gardening this year and what to do for that nasty back pain you hope you won’t experience.
Don’t wait for garden season to prepare your back
One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they will sit around on the couch during the cold seasons and then start doing work in the garden out of nowhere when the weather warms back up. The problem with this is that your back is not used to this kind of manual labor that can take up to 12 hours a day of work.
When you keep up a fitness routine during the winter season that keeps your back strong, working on your garden beds is suddenly not so different than the usual routine. Make sure you are exercising and spending less time on the couch over the winter in order to keep up your back strength during the warmer months of gardening.
Make sure you take breaks
Another common mistake among those that end up with back pain from gardening is that they get so into what they are working on, that they forget to take breaks. It’s important that every half hour you take a break. Try to schedule the work you need to do in 30 minute increments with breaks to stretch, sit down, and rehydrate. You won’t feel decent if you work at it non-stop all day or weekend and then try to resume your daily activity.
Help with muscle confusion by varying tasks
Just like a fitness instructor would tell you, muscle confusion during a workout or gardening session is great for toning the body and giving your muscles a rest. When you keep your tasks varied during gardening, it will help you to avoid hurting yourself. Don’t spend your whole day bending over to pick your weeds, but take some of that time to squat while pulling the weeds, dig while pulling, and other times bending. Your back will get a break and you’ll rely on other muscles to get you through the tasks.
Bring in some help
Lastly, when you see neighbor kids interested in what you’re doing, consider hiring them for a little bit of help. It will be a great bonding experience, a chance for the kids to learn about hard work, and an inexpensive way for you while a child would love a chance to earn some money. You won’t be dealing with back pain all week and you might get the work done in half the time.
Don’t allow the gardening season to put your back in danger. Make sure to end your sessions with a short walk to active your muscles and loosen things up, and then schedule a visit to your chiropractor for an adjustment before and after the work. You’ll feel better and you won’t harm your back during this year’s gardening season.
How to Prevent Neck Pain During Cycling
Getting pain from a cycling session can be frustrating. You are trying to improve your skill and you end up with neck pain, putting you out for the next cycling day. Neck pain from this sport is really common and is usually caused from weak muscles or poor posture.
It’s not hard to overuse your muscles and injuring yourself. Sometimes it’s just a matter of choosing a better bike fit or changing your posture just slightly. You don’t have to give up your favorite hobby due to that neck pain you keep getting. Use this guide to determine what’s causing your neck pain and learn how to prevent it going forward.
What could be causing the pain?
While neck pain and injury is common from cycling, it can be frustrating if you’re not sure what is causing it. There are a few possible causes to your problem and solutions to these problems. The first may be that you are unaware of prevention methods that would help you avoid the neck pain or numbness, such as properly fitting bikes, the right equipment, or not stretching the right areas. Having the wrong alignment or forgetting to stretch after being stiff for too long can cause serious injury after prolonged periods of time.
About bike fit
Getting properly fitted for your bike is one of the most important things you could do for regular cycling. If you don’t have a good bike fit, it might be that your frame is too big or small for you. the handlebars may be too wide or narrow or your stem may need to be adjusted to be just shorter or longer than it is now. This all affects your posture for a long cycling session. Working with a professional could help you to make tiny adjustments that will help you prevent pain and numbness.
You’ll also want to make sure your posture allows your shoulder blades to be engaged and held back away from ears. Your head shouldn’t be cocked back too far either. Make sure your bike gloves have padding for the bike you are using to avoid hand numbness and add tape to your handle bars if you ride on roads.
Learn proper stretching
You may find that you don’t have any pain until a couple of hours after cycling, which could mean that it’s more of a weak muscle issue. Not having strong enough muscles to support your head’s weight for a long period of time could be the reason for your pain.
This is because the trapezius muscles along your neck and shoulder attached to the base of your head are tensed for a long period of time, and it causes your muscles to lack in blood oxygen from the lack of blood flow to the area. When you experience muscle spasms and other pain, this is the reason behind it. Simply remembering to strengthen and stretch this area is the perfect way to relieve this problem.
Proper stretching includes doing:
- Chin tucks in a neutral position
- Right and left head rotations to stretch the neck
- Right and left lateral flexion of your neck to the shoulder
- Extension by tilting your head back to stretch the back of the neck
- Flexion of the neck while standing or sitting upright to stretch the muscles in the back of your neck
If you aren’t using all of the gear you need, have a bike that is just slightly off, or forget to strengthen your muscles, you could end up with pain and numbness when you cycle. Make sure to check all of these items out before cycling again to make sure you are keeping your body healthy and strong.
Can Kids Benefit from a Chiropractor?
Even though you go to the chiropractor regularly, you may have never thought to take the kids in for their own appointment, did you? You may be surprised to learn that kids can actually benefit greatly from chiropractic care, just like adults do, and that starting them off early is a great way to keep them healthy and balanced.
Not only can your chiropractor help relieve an injury or illness, but your kids can benefit by getting immune system support, taking advantage of preventative care, and help with problems like colic or recovering from birth trauma. Take a look at these scenarios where your child can see an improvement after visiting the chiropractor.
Preventative care
Speaking of preventative care, this is another key reason that the chiropractor can help your children thrive, just like you can experience as an adult. Rather than trying to treat sick children, it’s easier to take them to the chiropractor and give them a stronger body that will improve their chances of fighting off illness before it affects them. Stop thinking of a chiropractor as the fixer of a problem, but think of them more as the doctor that helps you before something happens in order to maintain your health.
Birth and beginning of life care
Have you ever wondered if there was a natural way to help with your baby’s postnatal care? The chiropractor is another great source for this area of things, specifically when it comes to birth trauma recovery and issues with colic.
While the bird may be hard on mom and a colicky baby can be a challenge, these things take a toll on baby too. The physical stress of birth on an infant can sometimes cause physical injury for an infant, but sometimes not knowing if there is an injury can make things worse.
A chiropractic evaluation can help you to see if your baby was injured during birth or is healing properly after the experience. If you find you have a colicky baby, chiropractic care is proven to improve the crying behavior of infants.
Getting immune system support
Kids tend to get sick often, especially being around other kids at school where germs are everywhere. Having a way to get some extra immune system support is a great way to fight off a cold or fever, or simply try to avoid catching it from others.
Having the kids visit a chiropractor is a great preventative practice for cold and flu season since the chances of catching a cold, cough, or fever is higher for kids. Chiropractors notice improvement in kids’ immune systems after getting regular adjustments.
Kids can enjoy fewer missed days of school since chiropractors are reporting quicker recovery times or patients that aren’t getting the cold or flu at all. This is likely because your chiropractor is keeping your nervous system and immune systems working optimally, and because the lymph nodes have an easier time carrying the immune cells through the musculoskeletal system of the body.
Injuries
You may have already been doing this but if you haven’t, keep in mind that chiropractic care is great for kids that have fallen or have become injured. Treating an injury or fall is common for chiropractors, but you should remember these other areas where a chiropractor can help too. Even if your child hasn’t broken an arm, you may want to take your child in to be sure there wasn’t a small trauma that is less noticeable. An adjustment can be sure that things are in place and working properly.
If you’ve ever wondered if your kids can benefit from chiropractic care, wait no further to take them in. children of all ages can see big benefits from the chiropractor and they don’t need to have an ailment before they go in for a visit.
I’m here to serve the health needs of yourself and your circle of family and friends. Remember, I will always accept your referrals as members of my practice.
Dr. Peter Fraser
32 Brock Road North
Puslinch, Ontario
TeL: 519 763 1200
http://www.aberfoylefamilychiropractic.com
