Shovel Your Worries Away

by Molly Magunga, MS ATC, CPT, CES

Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about proper shoveling techniques and how to structure your workouts to help prevent shoveling-related injuries.

It’s that time of year again. There is a chill in the air. The days are still short. We never know if there will be rain or snow. Although a lot of us love the look of the winter wonderland, venturing out in the snow can be a painful task. I mean painful in every sense of the word. If you aren’t using the correct form or you aren’t strong in the right muscles, the risk of injury is higher when you go to shovel. If it’s heavy, wet snow, it poses an even bigger risk of injury if you aren’t ready for it. Back and shoulder pain are the most common shovel related ailment.

It’s not too late to start strength training to help get yourself stronger before the next big storm. Any start to training in preparation is extremely helpful and any start to a program is proper form. Just having proper form will help reduce your risk of injury.

Proper Shoveling Form:

Before you even go out in the snow, you need to remember that shoveling is a very physical task and a proper warm up is necessary. Make sure your legs, arms, and spine are properly stretched and warmed up.

After the warm up, it’s time to get shoveling. Think of shoveling like deadlifting. In your deadlifting set up with the bar, your grip is nice and wide. It’s the same when you shovel. This helps to control the weight at the ends of the shovel. When you deadlift or clean, you also keep the bar close to your body for the movement. You want to do the same when shoveling.

The rest of your body is set up exactly like a deadlift as well once it comes time to prepare for a shovel-full of snow. You want to remember to keep a soft bend in your knees, back straight, shoulders pulled down and away from your ears, and core engaged.

The last form tip to remember when shoveling is how to actually move the snow. When you can, push the snow with the shoveling. It’s a lot better for your body to push it away, then trying to lift it all. When pushing it isn’t possible, you want to pivot your body. Do not twist.

Tips for Strength Training:

Here are some great exercises to help get you strong for those shoveling day. You want to do 12 to 15 reps of each exercise. Repeat exercises three times. Think about how much you would have to shovel. You need to be able to maintain form for that period, so you should strength train accordingly.