Safe Snow Shoveling Tips!

Safety Tips for snow shoveling:

Start with 1. preparing your body for the activity, 2. using good body mechanics when actually shoveling, and 3. stretching after the activity.  Staying hydrated and properly dressed is also necessary for safety.  Keeping redundancy of effort to a minimum will also save you time and energy.  This means avoiding shoveling the same snow twice by planning where to deposit the snow in advance, not throwing snow long distances, and by shoveling in a pattern that allows for depositing the snow below shoulder height. (1)

1. Preparing your body for the activity of shoveling can start with some gentle yoga based flowing movements that warm up your body including:  Standing Cat-Cow(Dog), Head & neck movements, Shoulder Shrugs, and gentle arm movements. This followed by a chair flow series that includes 1. Mountain Pose with gentle spine extension followed by 2. Chair pose. Steps 1 and 2 are repeated 5 to 10 times. Hydrate with water before going out to shovel.
2. Good Body Mechanics involve proper lifting techniques which includes using your body with good spinal and limb alignment, bending your knees, engaging your core, alternating sides used to shovel, lifting smaller snow loads, taking mini stretch breaks, avoid twisting and using an ergonomic shovel if possible (for more information on shovel types see the Consumer Reports reference below. They have a nice list of shovel types and their benefits.  They even recommend more than one shovel type for different snow removal activities. (2))
3. Stretching and De-stressing your body after shoveling can include yoga based stretches and movements to counter balance the muscles and movements used for shoveling, such as standing cat-cow(dog), gentle back bends, hamstring stretches, lateral side bends, lunges with front leg on ground or step, gentle spinal rotation poses standing, seated or supine.  Make sure you replace fluids with water after shoveling.

References from Web:

1. http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/outdoor-projects/16-cardinal-rules-for-snow-shovelling

2.http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/01/best-snow-shovels-safe-snow-removal/index.htm