Bending and lifting is a hotly debated topic in the fitness and movement world, with a great deal of misinformation, should and should nots, and conflicting information. This is an incredibly important topic to be well-informed on, as bending and lifting are a common trigger for back injury and reinjury. Many people with back pain begin to avoid this activity in general for fear of pain flare ups. For the general public, improper bending and lifting can put excessive strain on the spine and other joints, and also limits performance during fitness activities and household chores. Many people are used to hearing flashy but shallow phrases such as, “Lift with your legs, not with your back!”, as well as seeing ergonomic posters and pamphlets about how to do it right without actually knowing how to internalize this movement pattern into daily life.
When bending and lifting, whether it is to pick up a 200 pound barbell or simply to bend down to tie your shoes, we want to move with efficiency.
This means our nervous system and musculoskeletal system working together with pristine responsiveness, precision, and organization to ensure an even distribution of load throughout the joints, making the movement as easy as possible. By moving the most efficiently, we are able to spread the work out over more of our body, utilize the force coming up from the ground, and lift more weight more often without being limited by pain or injury. It is not a matter of lifting with the legs and not with the back, but rather it is a matter of lifting with everything in the body, making particular use of the force couple that is formed between the contraction of the abdominals and the gluteal muscles. This force couple between the front and back of our bodies allows us to generate the most power, because the glutes and abs are the strongest muscles in our body. In order to utilize this muscular connection to our advantage, we must know how to lift and tuck the tailbone.
Follow along with this lesson to practice your lifting and bending mechanics:
1. First, sit on a firm chair with your feet on the floor. Begin to visualize where your tailbone is, and visualize an imaginary “light” shining from the end of your tailbone (see the red arrow). Then, tuck and tilt your pelvis in order to LIFT the tailbone so the light shines more behind you, and then TUCK your tailbone so the light shines more down and forward towards your feet. You can imagine you have an actual tail, and you are trying to move this tail by rolling the pelvis forward and back. Practice alternating between these two positions several times.
2. Next, practice bending forward in the chain until your hands start to lower towards the ground. If you have back pain, you don’t have to lean forward very far at all. The important part is to LIFT the tailbone as you lean forward, and TUCK the tailbone back under as you roll back up to sitting. Another helpful cue is to think about pushing the ground AWAY from you with your feet as you come back up to sitting.
3. Now let’s apply this to standing. Stand very close to an object, starting with something light like a yoga block or a shoe. As you bend forward to reach your hands toward the object, allow your head to drop down, and allow your tailbone to LIFT. Let the knees bend. To come back up with the object, think about TUCKING the tailbone, pressing the hips forward, and rolling back up to standing. Notice that this is more of a horizontal movement (hip hinge) rather than a vertical movement in which the spine stays upright.
How did that feel? Practice applying the principle of lifting your tailbone to bend down and tucking your tailbone to come back up the next time you bend and lift in your daily life.
Written by Jacob Tyson, DPT - Physical Therapist, Yoga Instructor and The Wellness Station Team