Top 3 Mistakes with Lifting
Top 3 Mistakes with Lifting
A blog post written by Dr. Alyssa at Empower Your Pelvis-a pelvic floor physical therapy clinic in Kansas City.
Ribs stacked over the pelvis
Whether you are a weight lifter, a person who frequently does yardwork, or a new mom with a baby, we are all lifting to some capacity each day. We all stand up from chairs, lift our groceries/bags of mulch/babies and transfer them to various surfaces. Therefore, we all are lifting each day! It is important for our bone health and overall mobility to be able to do these things regularly but there are some common things I see go wrong when watching patients move in the clinic.
Overarching
The first is breath holding. When we go to stand or pick up something heavy, oftentimes we hold our breath and grunt as we do it. This pushes pressure down into our abdomen and pelvic floor as we move which can cause bladder leakage or pelvic heaviness. Instead, exhale as you move to lift pressure up from the pelvic floor. For example, as you stand from a chair - exhale. If you pick up a box or a kid from the ground - exhale. When you lift plates overhead to the cabinet - exhale. This is the easiest way to incorporate good patterns and health for our pelvic floor!
The second thing I see happen is that we tend to shove our pelvis in front of our hips and arch our back when we stand up from a chair or from lifting something off the ground. This can contribute to back tightness, bladder leakage, and pelvic heaviness. My tip for correcting this is to think about stacking your ribs over your pelvis when you stand up from a lift.
The third thing is that we tend to tuck our pelvis under and round our back as we lift something from the floor. This places most of the work on our back and doesn’t allow our glutes to do the work for us. Instead, when you bend to pick something up off the floor, think about hinging your hips back as if shutting the car door with your butt. This can be a hard thing to master for some, so I suggest practicing with a dowel or broom at your back first to get the movement down. This keeps our spine neutral and makes our glutes work!
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