Sorry, I have been away for a little while, but my wife and I have had our house totally re-modeled which required us to move out for two months. Oh, we also took a flight to Paris i the middle of all this too! I mentioned that in my last post. Anyway, we have been helping our contractors do some of the work and that can be harder than any workout. Of course, I spent time watching the people work visualizing the muscles that actually allowed them to do what they did. I told you, I am a muscle nerd! Is working on your home killing your body?
Let’s start with the electrician. Our electrician had to bend her body in ways that would probably cripple most people not used to doing it. The plumber made very similar movements without the ladder. Instead of working with small wires, he was working with larger pipes, but it was the same movement. Our carpenter and drywaller, the same guy, did similar movements too, but for longer periods of time. FThe tile guy was on his knees continuously while stretching forward toplace large square tiles. He had to use his shoulders to wipe across the tiles over and over as he laid the grout. All of these jobs required them to be in positions, most are rarely in. This will lead to back pain, neck pain, and fatigue.
Awkward Positions
Let’s look at these positions and think about your own body when you do these for much shorter periods of time. Climbing up a ladder and working overhead. Some of you may have done this when you are trimming tall bushes or short trees. Maybe you have painted a ceiling that left you sore. Going up and down a ladder will cause the rotating muscles in your hips to tighten as well as the quads, front of your thighs, to tighten as they left your entire body weight up each step. This can lead to low back stiffness by the end of the day. While standing on the ladder, looking overhead, they will tighten their back muscles but what is forgotten is, the abdominal muscles must tighten too to stabilize your balance so they won’t fall. This causes compression on the spine from top to bottom.
Working on Your Knees
Working on their knees is very similar to your gardening. First off, most of the contractors use knee pads to soften the pressure on their knee caps which will damage their knee joints. You, too, should always use a knee pad even if you are on the dirt which is softer. On top of the knee pressure from the knee caps, is the pressure on the knees from the front of your thighs. These muscles attach below the knee cap which adds additional pressure on the knee joint, plus the upper part of the thigh will fatigue and pull your pelvis forward causing low back stiffness as well. Check out this post, https://musclerepairshop.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1959&action=edit
Working with your Hands
Working with their hands twisting wires or tightening pipes together can cause elbow tendonitis, wrist tendinitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or arthritis in those joints. Why? The twisting of the hands tightens the muscles in the forearms The gripping of the tools causes these muscles to tighten and get hard. This hardness pulls the joints closer together causes the joint to lose its lubrication and pain occurs. The rotation also increases the hardness which causes the wrist bones to lose their lubrication and increase the pressure on the median nerve in the carpal tunnel of the wrist setting off carpal tunnel syndrome. Arthritis is simply the drying out of the joint and we will discuss that in a later post.
Conclusion
I am always amazed at how many people complain about their pain and yet do very little to prepare themselves for the job at hand. Working on a home can kill your body. We all seem to just go out and do it, then we are surprised when we hurt. Can you imagine a football player not preparing for one game on Sunday, then being surprised if he gets injured? To properly prepare we must understand which muscles we will be using. I don’t mean anatomically, but feel which part of your body is being used in the movements you are doing. These little preparations will allow you to finish your chores and have the luxury of admiring your work without sitting on a heating pad or taking pain killers for days. To see videos to help you go to https://www.musclerepairshop.com
