You need to know how to pick things up. You don’t want to hurt your back. Pick stuff up with your body. Set stuff down with your body. Squat down, get it between your legs, and then stand up. In fact, grab something heavy around the house and do some squats. Man, you’ll feel that, I promise.

Workplace workouts. That’s the blogging today. Or I should say an excuse for your workplace workouts. All right. I thought today I would talk to you real briefly about how to pick things up, whether it’s in your garage, whether it’s in the kitchen, whether you’re hiding body parts because you’re a serial killer. You need to know how to do this. You don’t want to hurt your back. Picking stuff up with your body. Setting it down with your body. I’m sure that will be worked out later. Don’t worry about that shipping to the wrong place. And just so you know, they’re not empty boxes. They’re pretty heavy, about 30 pounds.

Reaching over like this and trying to just pick up a box with straight legs? Bad idea. I know you’ve probably seen this in all your OSHA videos. But we’re going to do this the right way. We’re going to squat down, tip the box, get it between your legs, and then stand up. See that? Just like that.

In fact, grab something heavy around the house, do some squats. Man, you’ll feel that, I promise. If you’re lifting something up, that’s where those push-ups come in. If you’re trying to put something up on a shelf, that’s where you want to have that upper body strength. Common sense.

People, including myself, get hurt not paying attention. Everybody always gets hurt shoveling snow. You know why? They grab a shovel. They’re not warmed up and their back spasms. They’re whining and sniveling and crying and all kinds of horrible things.

You just take a little time. Think things through. Use your whole body to pick things up. Don’t reach beyond your means. If you hyper extend any part of your body and you’re not warmed up or stretched out, you’re going to get a boo boo. We don’t care. We don’t want to hear about it. Quit your whining.

Reaching up like this is bad. You’re off balance. If you’re going to reach, reach up like this. Grab your heavy box and and whatever this mysterious stuff is, and up. Not thrilling, but pretty important so that you don’t get hurt. Getting hurt, its the classic cliche of every workplace.

When we come back to the next blog, I’m going to show you some basic stretches. Promise. Hurry back.